I am Associate Professor of Philosophy at Regis University (Regis College) in Denver, Colorado USA. I specialize in contemporary Continental philosophy, especially contemporary Continental aesthetics and metaphysics. I also conduct research in the history of philosophy, philosophy and mathematics, philosophical logic, and social and political philosophy. I am on a year-long research sabbatical during the academic year 2020-2021.
Research
My current research concerns philosophical notions of rootedness, home, and citizenship in work by Plato, Martin Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and Jacques Derrida, and the value of these notions for thinking through problems of urban life. These provide resources for thinking carefully about one's place in the city, one's relationship to their neighbors, and their more remote connections to land and geologic time. Immediately, I hypothesize that this sort of attention may aid in understanding challenges of gentrification and displacement; more remotely, I suggest that this attention supports positive action in the face of environmental and climate challenges. This work is at the cornerstone of my sabbatical project and manuscript in development, tentatively titled Being at Home: Hospitality and Citizenship in a Changing American City, and uses the recent economic transformations and widespread gentrification in Denver, Colorado as a case study.
I have developed an interdisciplinary research profile, which puts philosophy in conversation with art (particularly photography and alternative photographic processes), urban studies and architecture, and history, especially as historical context informs the philosophical paradigms with which I work. My commitment to and interest in interdisciplinarity is evident in my dissertation and recent book, Multiplicity and Ontology in Deleuze and Badiou (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), which uses work by Deleuze, Deleuze and Guattari, and Alain Badiou to describe the status of multiplicity as an ontological structure and the use of mathematics as an ontological procedure in their respective theories. I situate their interactions and various textual expressions in the period between 1977 and 1997 as a conversation that takes multiplicity as its central topic.
In addition to theoretical research in philosophy, I am also engaged in research concerning the value of critical phenomenology when it comes to facilitating (often challenging) conversations in the classroom about race, gender, sexuality, and identity. My work in this area is currently focused on the nature of the philosophy classroom and the crucial role student-led, peer-to-peer discussions play in the apprehension of identity and being in community with others. Here I use ideas of "social workspace theory" to consider the structure and unfolding of these sorts of discussions in my classrooms.
Selected Publications
"Alain Badiou." Entry in Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers (2020). DOI 10.5040/9781350999992.0041; subscription required.
"Collision: Voices of Water." Evental Aesthetics: Aesthetic Intersections 3, vol. 9:1 (2020), 55-67. Open Access online: https://eventalaesthetics.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/EAV9N1_2020_Vartabedian_Water_55_67.pdf
(Monograph) Multiplicity and Ontology in Deleuze and Badiou. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319768366
"Negation, Structure, Transformation: Alain Badiou and the New Metaphysics." In Open Philosophy topical issue, "The New Metaphysics: Analytic/Continental Crossovers" (2018): 213-222. Open Access online: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opphil.2018.1.issue-1/opphil-2018-0015/opphil-2018-0015.xml?format=INT"Allowances, Affordances, and the Collaborative Constitution of Identity.” Perspectives International Postgraduate Journal in Philosophy, vol. 5 (2014), 58-74.
"Should We Condemn Michael?” in Ultimate LOST and Philosophy: Think Together, Die Alone, ed. Sharon Kaye (Wiley, 2010), 233-241. Also appeared as “Should We Condemn Michael for Saving Walt?” in LOST and Philosophy: The Island Has Its Reasons, ed. Sharon Kaye (Blackwell, 2007), 18-25.
"Special Effects, Special Status: Lie, Visual Effects, and Stephen Prince’s Perceptual Realism,” Cinemascope 10 (Jan.-June 2008), special issue: Falsehood and Cinema, ed. Mariangela Fornaro, http://www.cinemascope.it.
Review of James Dreier, ed., Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory (Blackwell, 2006), Teaching Philosophy 30:1 (March 2007), 132-134.Forthcoming • Under Review • In Press
With S. Andarge, N. Aranda, J. Brady, T.M. Charfauros, K. Coakley, and R. Worles, "Erlebnis, Tarrying, and Thinking Again after George Yancy." Book chapter in George Yancy: a Critical Reader.
Review of Alain Badiou and Gilles Haéri, In Praise of Mathematics (Polity, 2016). Submitted for publication in Badiou Studies 6 (review accepted, volume delayed).
In Progress
"Hospitality and the Outside: Hosts, Guests, and Places in Heidegger, Jacobson, and Bennett," in preparation for Philosophy in the Contemporary World.
"The Pleasures of the Problem: Parmenides, Badiou, and Mathematics," in preparation for Practice: Encounters with Antiquity, eds. Ryan Johnson, Jacob Greenstine, and Dave Mesing; text under contract with Edinburgh University Press.
Teaching and Course Development
I offer courses in the history of philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy's relationship to art, and philosophy’s intersections with race, gender, and sexuality. Each of my courses are built on the commitment to philosophy as a tool that provides those who engage it with the critical awareness and skills necessary to transform the present for a better future. A sampling of recent courses at these crossings include:
- Special Topics in Philosophy: Philosophy and Creativity
- Philosophy in Practice
- Topics in Metaphysics: The Event
- Philosophy and Social Issues: Precarious Bodies
- Philosophy/Art
In our Department's history sequence, I teach the following:- 19th Century Philosophy
- 20th Century Philosophy: Phenomenology
- Contemporary Currents: Continental Philosophy in the 21st Century
- Medieval Philosophy
I contribute the "Living Deliberately" and "Living Well" course pair to the First Year Experience program at Regis University, bringing a cohort of students through a fall semester writing course ("Living Deliberately") and spring semester philosophy course ("Living Well). In addition to engaging the work of Henry David Thoreau and his philosophical and cultural inheritors, we learn "how to college," how to build community, and how to integrate our college pathways with the Jesuit values at the heart of Regis University's pedagogical commitments.For third- and fourth-year students, I offer courses in our Integrative Core program, inviting students to think from their disciplines, accumulated skills, and personal perspectives about issues pertinent to our lives together. These courses - "Refugees, Resources, Resettlement" and "Hospitality, Justice, and the Common Good" - include service- and community-based learning components as an aid to traditional instruction. I am also affiliated faculty in the Peace and Justice Studies and Women's and Gender Studies programs.Education
My academic preparation is pluralistic; my work with contemporary Continental philosophy is informed by extensive training in the history of philosophy and work with Analytic philosophy.
Ph.D., Philosophy, Duquesne University
M. Humanities, Graduate Interdisciplinary Studies: Philosophy and Film Studies, University of Colorado Denver
M.A., Philosophy of Religion (Honors), Denver Seminary
B.A., Philosophy and History, Regis University (Regis College)
About Me
I was born and raised in the Denver area and have lived in Denver for most of my life. My husband, Andrew Vartabedian, is an independent photographer and art teacher; a selection of his photographic work is here: https://andrewvartabedian.myportfolio.com/projects. I enjoy Pittsburgh Pirates baseball, lifting heavy things, noodles in broth, reading speculative and science fiction, film, and hanging around with our basenji comrade, Luke.
I appeared on an episode of Jeopardy! in 2008. I did not win.