2025 Philosophy Faculty Updates

It’s not only our students who shoot for the stars. This year, along with two colleagues in Sweden, Prof. John Gibson received a second prestigious Templeton award to study the role of art critics in constructing the meaning of works of art. He secured a contract with Oxford University Press for his next book, which will develop this theme. He also received the A&S Distinguished Faculty Award for Service to the Profession, and was recognized by the Humanities PhD students with the Annette Allen Mentorship Award. If you live in town, you might have caught Prof. Andreas Elpidorou’s LFPL short course on “Living Well.” Andreas’s new book, Anatomy of Boredom, is now available from Oxford University Press. Prof. Olivia Schuman, profiled in last year’s newsletter, received a major grant from Norton Healthcare to continue overseeing and building out clinical ethics capacity in the Norton system. Prof. Avery Kolers served this year on the Mental Health Research steering committee with CLOUT (Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together), eventually helping to secure commitments from members of Metro Council and Seven Counties Services to create and fund a 24-hour drop-in crisis center. Prof. Guy Dove was selected as a Bingham Faculty Fellow with the Commonwealth Center for Humanities and Society, where he will be conducting interdisciplinary research on linkages between human cognition and artificial intelligence. Prof. Lauren Freeman’s recent book – coauthored with alum Heather Stewart ’15, now a professor at Oklahoma State University – was the subject of author-meets-critics sessions at the Association for Practical & Professional Ethics conference in Cincinnati, as well as the Pacific APA in San Francisco. Prof. Glenn (Boomer) Trujillo, profiled below, served as Vice President of the Southwest Philosophical Association this year, which mostly meant that he did yeoman’s work to organize the association’s annual conference, which took place in Nashville in October.