Professor Shaun Gallagher was recently interviewed for a Boston Globe "Ideas" article by Drake Bennett, Don't just stand there, think. (13 January 2008). You can also listen to parts of an interview with Gallagher by Martin Hubert for a German Public Radio science program at Science in Focus (Wissenschaft im Brennpunkt). This was a special program on The Body in the Head [Körper im Kopf], recorded March 13, 2007 at Bochum Universität, and aired 20 January 2008. Listen to the program (in German): MP3.

Visiting Scholar. Leon de Bruin, Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, is a visiting scholar in the department for Spring 2008. de Bruin is writing a dissertation on phenomenology and embodied cognition.

New Book: The Phenomenological Mind. Professor Shaun Gallagher has published a new book, co-authored with Dan Zahavi (University of Copenhagen), entitled The Phenomenological Mind. This volume explores a number of issues in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences from the perspective of phenomenology. It discusses such topics as consciousness, temporality, embodiment, action, social cognition, and personal identity.

Visiting Professor, Fall 2007. Dan Schmicking, University of Mainz, was Visiting Professor of Philosophy at UCF in Fall 2007. His visit was made possible by a Siemens Corporation grant in support of the study of German Philosophy. While at UCF Dr. Schmicking worked on editing a collection of essays, entitled, Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, to be published by Springer Publications next year.

An international and interdisciplinary conference on embodied cognition was organized by The Philosophy Department in October 2007. Researchers from 13 different countries, including Japan, Australia, and a variety of countries in South America and Europe gathered to discuss perception, movement, action, social cognition, and a variety of theoretical approaches to these and other topics. Key note addresses were given by Andy Clark and Jeffrey Bradshaw. More information available at www.philosophy.ucf.edu/pcs/eeee.html.

Shaun Gallagher was interviewed for Croatian Public Television in October on the topic of background factors in cognition. He was joined by philosophers John Searle (Berkeley), Dan Hutto (Hertfordshire), Michael Wheeler (Stirling), and Susan Stuart (Glasgow). The program will air in 2008.

Philosophy Department participated in the Stem-Cell Research session during the UCF Research Week
The controversial issue of stem cell research in our society was discussed by a panel of researchers during UCF's Research Week. The panel's development was supported in part through efforts from the Department of Philosophy's Ethics Center Initiative and the critical thinking component of Philosophy's Information Fluency program. [ Click here for more information on the panel ]

Dr. Stephen Fiore (Assistant Professor of Cognitive Sciences) is co-editor with Eduardo Salas of a special issue of the International Journal of Sports and Exercise Psychology on the topic "Team Cognition and Expert Teams: Emerging Insights into Learning and Performance for Exceptional Teams", to appear in December 2006.

Professor Shaun Gallagher's book, How the Body Shapes the Mind (Oxford University Press), has now been published in paperback. Gallagher is also an editor of a special edition of Janus Head, an interdisciplinary journal, on the topic of "The Situated Body" scheduled for publication in December 2006.

New Degree in Religious Studies: A new BA in Religious Studies will be offered starting in Fall 2006. For the past three years Religious Studies has been offered as a track in the Humanities BA. Starting with the new catalog the Humanities track in Religious Studies will no longer exist and is replaced with the Religious Studies BA. Contact the Philosophy Department for more information.

Kristin Congdon, Professor of Philosophy and Film, co-authored a book entitled, Just Above the Water: Florida Folk Art, published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2006. She won the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning award, as well as awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at both the College and the University level. On sabbatical in 2006-07, Dr. Congdon will travel to China and will continue to work on her Folkvines project conducted under a grant from the Florida Humanities Council.

Shaun Gallagher, Professor of Philosophy, will be Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen in May-June 2006 (supported by the University of Copenhagen Research Priority Area: Body and Mind and the Center for the Study of Subjectivity). He is co-authoring a book entitled The Phenomenological Mind to be published by Routledge Press. He has been invited to give plenary lectures at the International Conference on Philosophy, Psychiatry, and the Neurosciences, at Leiden University, The Netherlands in June; at the conference on Language, Culture, and Mind Conference. at CREA in Paris, in July; at the conference on Situated Cognition: Perspectives from Phenomenology and Science. Durham University in August; at the 10th Annual Conference of the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society, St Anne's College, Oxford in September; and at the National Conference of the Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Medellín, Columbia in November. A co-edited volume by Dr. Gallagher, entitled Does Consciousness Cause Behavior, was published in 2006 by MIT Press.

Steve Fiore, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Sciences, is co-PI on a number of new grants, including: Cognition in natural environments: Using simulated scenarios in complex decision making experiments, National Science Foundation ($647,430); Cognition and Collaboration in Network Centric Operations, Office of Naval Research ($3,000,000); Operational Neuroscience Sensing Suite, UCF Presidential Equipment Grant ($100,000); Toward an Understanding of the Macro-Cognitive Processes in Complex Team Problem Solving, Office of Naval Research ($75,000); and Virtual Technologies and Environments (VIRTE) for Advanced Research on Agents and Teams, Office of Naval Research. ($2,200,000).

Dr. Husain Kassim, Associate Professor of Philosophy, on sabbatical in 06-07, will be Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. He will be researching his book project, Legitimizing Modernity in Islam: Pakistan and Egypt, which also received support when he was Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Karachi in 2004-05.

Michael Strawser will be joining the faculty as Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Fall 2006.
Dr. Michael Strawser, who has been a visiting instructor of philosophy at UCF for the past 4 years, joined UCF's Philosophy Department following ten years of teaching a broad variety of courses at Folkuniversitetet in Helsingborg, Sweden. Dr. Strawser has also taught philosophy as an adjunct at the Florida State University, where he received his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1993 and his M.A. in 1990. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, where he also received an award for Academic Excellence in philosophy/religion in 1985-86 and was a member of the Alpha Chi National Honor Society. Dr. Strawser's research interests include Kierkegaard, existential philosophy and continental philosophy. His book entitled Both/And: Reading Kierkegaard from Irony to Edification, is published by Fordham University Press, 1997. He has also published articles in The International Journal of Philosophical Studies, The Journal of the History of Philosophy, Philosophy Today and Mexican, Swedish and Danish academic journals. Dr. Strawser has been a guest scholar at St. Olaf College in Minnesota and has also studied at the Goethe-Institut in Germany, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Lund University in Sweden. He has received teaching scholarships to attend pedagogical workshops at the College of St. Mark and St. John in England, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the American University in Washington, D.C.

Shaun Gallagher Interview
Science and Consciousness Review has published an interview with the Philosophy Department Chair, Shaun Gallagher on his new book How the Body Shapes the Mind. The interview can be found online here.

Dan Zahavi, visiting scholar (January 2005)

As part of the Philosophy Department's faculty exchange program with the University of Copenhagen. Dan Zahavi, Director of the Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen, and a well-known phenomenological philosopher is visiting UCF in January 2005. He will participate in a conference on Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences and will present a department colloquium on "Being someone." While at UCF he is completing a new book entitled Subjectivity and Selfhood, to be published by MIT Press.

Faculty Exchange

The Philosophy Department has developed a faculty exchange program with the University of Copenhagen. Presently, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion Arne Grøn, a well-known scholar in Kierkegaard studies, is visiting UCF. Prof. Grøn is from the University of Copenhagen's Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research. He visited from March 22 to April 16, and gave a public lecture, entitled "Ethics of Recognition."