Villanova Philosophy PhD Program Alumni News, Job Placements, Dissertation Defenses

Katherine Filbert '19 PhD

VILLANOVA, Pa. – The Villanova University Department of Philosophy in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is proud to announce a number of job placements and dissertation defenses for recent graduates of the doctoral program.

Says Philosophy Doctoral Program Director Julie Klein, PhD, "As always, we are very proud of our students' scholarly accomplishments and strength as teachers of philosophy. While the academic labor market remains very challenging, we're delighted to see our students secure positions inside and outside of the academy."
 

Alumni News

Adriel Trott '08 PhD department chair and associate professor of philosophy at Wabash College, has been named the Andrew T. and Anne Ford Chair in the Liberal Arts. Dr. Trott’s research focuses on how ancient philosophy can be a resource both for diagnosing contemporary conceptions of political life, of being human, of nature, and of gender and for presenting alternatives to these accounts. She has written two books: Aristotle on the Nature of Community, and Aristotle on the Matter of Form: A Feminist Metaphysics of Generation.
 

Job Placements

Katherine Filbert '19 PhD accepted a tenure-track position at Cal State Stanislaus. Dr. Filbert most recently served as an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at King’s College. Her specializations are in Classical Chinese Philosophy and 19th-20th century Continental Philosophy, and her current research lies in developing a comparative ethics of thinking that examines the relationship between thinking and life in the works of Gilles Deleuze and pre-Qin Chinese philosophy.  Her dissertation is “Harming Stupidity: Deleuze and Zhuangzi’s Ethics of Thought.”

Christiaan (Iaan) Reynolds '21 PhD accepted a tenure-track position at Utah Valley University. His dissertation is “Ideology, Critique, and Political Education.”

Chris Drain '20 PhD is a lecturer with the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College. His dissertation is "Activity, Mediation, Signification: Toward a Neo-Vygotskian Anthropogeny."

Katherine Kurtz '21 PhD is web content editor for MoneyGeek.com. Her dissertation is "Deviant Bodies: Toward a Feminist Aesthetics of Monstrosity."

Chris Ma '22 serves as visiting assistant professor in the Augustine Culture and Seminar Program at Villanova University. She plans to defend her dissertation, "Narcissistic Gender: Psychoanalysis and the Social Formation of Gendered Bodies" in August.

David Mesing '20 PhD serves as visiting assistant professor in the Ethics Program at Villanova University. His dissertation is "Elements for a Theory of Strategy: History, Politics, and the Black Panther Party."

Miranda Pilipchuk '21 PhD is a research and evaluation coordinator at the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters in Alberta, Canada. Her dissertation is "Specters of Rape, Illusions of Justice: Sexual Violence Tropes and the Carceral System."

Charles Prusik '17 PhD serves as visiting assistant professor at Birmingham Southern College. His dissertation is "Negative Reason: Adorno and the Critique of Neoliberal Society."

Terence Sweeney '21 PhD enters his second year as the John and Daria Barry Fellow in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania and serves as theologian-in-residence at the Collegium Institute. His dissertation is "Sharing God in Common: An Augustinian Metaphysics and Ethics of Participative Community."

Dissertation Defenses

Hande Kesgin Esen '22 PhD - "The Ethics and Politics of Birth:A Contemporary Genealogy of Motherization" 

Daniel Cunningham '22 PhD - “The Modern Revolution in Political Affect”
 

Learn more about Villanova's doctoral program in Philosophy.