UCR Philosophy Department News—2006

Hiring News

Three new faculty members have joined us this fall and are now in residence:

  • Robin Jeshion joins us as full professor after having taught at Yale and after holding a Burkhardt Residential Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University during 2005–06. Robin specializes in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, and the history of analytic philosophy.
  • Michael Nelson joins us as assistant professor. Michael received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 2002 and has also taught at Yale. He specializes in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and agency theory.
  • Coleen Macnamara joins us as assistant professor with a Masters of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown University in 2006. She works in the areas of ethics and moral psychology, and in addition has teaching interests in ancient philosophy and feminism. Her dissertation is entitled Beyond Praise and Blame: A Theory of Holding Others Responsible.

Special Events

On Friday, January 12th, 2007, the Department will sponsor a conference, "Risk, Science and the Law," to commemorate the publication of Carl Cranor’s new book, Toxic Torts: Science, Law and the Possibility of Justice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006). In expected order of appearance, the speakers will be:

  • Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Professor of Philosophy and O’Neill Family Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame
  • Doug Maclean, Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • Thomas Hill, Jr., Kenan Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  • Joe Cecil, Project Director, Division of Research, Federal Judicial Center

In addition, Professor Dale Jamieson of New York University and Professor Andrew Light of the University of Washington will participate in the conference as discussants and session chairs.

Course Renumbering

The department has recently updated and restructured its course program. As a consequence, various course numbers have changed.