Departmental Newsletter: June - August 2026
This Month in Departmental History
August 1980: Benjamin Ward, the first Black philosophy professor at Duke, arrives in our department. He primarily worked on 18th and 19th century continental philosophy. He was also a concert pianist who performed with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra. He served in the department until his death in 2013.
August 10, 1999: Alasdair MacIntyre publishes Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues.
Felipe De Brigard, along with Sarah Robins (Purdue), was awarded the 2026 Lebowitz Prize in Philosophy. The prize recognizes outstanding achievement in philosophy and is awarded to a pair of philosophers with contrasting views on a topic of current interest. Congratulations, Felipe!
Jorge Morales has been selected to give one of this year’s Langford lectures. Each year, this honor is given to four or five newly tenured faculty, who are chosen to speak on their research to a group of their colleagues from across the university. Congratulations, Jorge!
Together with Alex Volfosky (Statistics), Matt Maasten (Economics) and Cynthia Rudin (Computer Science), Reuben Stern and Ben Eva were awarded a Trinity Interdisciplinary Research Initiative grant to establish a causal reasoning hub at Duke. As part of the initiative, Reuben, Ben and professor Volfosky will run a graduate seminar on causal inference as a Rhodes IID Pop Up Institute in the spring semester.
Reuben and Ben are also associate editors for the brand new Journal of Mathematical Philosophy. The journal is diamond open-access and welcomes submissions in subject areas such as as formal epistemology, philosophical logic, philosophy of science, decision theory, philosophy of mathematics, formal metaphysics, philosophy of language, formal ethics, and philosophy of AI.
Toril Moi was elected to the American Philosophical Society, the oldest academic society in the United States. Congratulations, Toril!
Sadly, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong's granddaughter and daughter moved to Cleveland this summer, but they still FaceTime almost every day. On a brighter note, Walter is looking forward to hosting several visitors at Duke this fall, including Paulius Rimkevičius, Ron Mallon, and Chandra Sripada. He will also co-direct a new Pop-Up Institute on Justice in AI. If any graduate students or faculty are interesting joining this group, please let him know.
Ásta delivered a talk entitled “Is Social Normativity Sui Generis?” at the International Social Ontology Society Conference in Kraków, Poland, in July. The Oxford Handbook of Social Ontology is finally out, where Ásta has an article:.
Shanna Slank was accepted to the university-wide Faculty Fellows AY 2026-27 Program, which is part of the Provost's Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry, and Belonging (PFB). The program will provide support and a community of practice for faculty members interested in playing a leading role in strengthening Duke’s capacity to foster open and respectful dialogue, intellectual humility, and principled engagement across difference.
Alex Rosenberg gave three talks at Sino-Australian Life Sciences Network Summer School in Sydney, Australia, from August 17-19. He will also give the Paul Kurtz Memorial Lecture at the University of Buffalo on September 18.
Nina Van Rooy is giving a public lecture on philosophy of animal minds at NC State, invited by the organization North Carolina Animal Advocates United (NCAAU), on Saturday Sept 5th from 11am - 1pm. The event will take place at the Talley Student Union, Room 3285. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided. All are welcome!
Katherine Brading was in Nuremberg to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Princeton-Bucharest (and more recently Nuremberg) seminar in early modern philosophy, with its founders Dana Jalobeanu and Dan Garber, and also to celebrate Dan Garber on the occasion of his upcoming retirement. Also there were Mary Purcell and the dear friend of our department, Aurora Yu.
Rich Eva published a paper in Teaching Ethics called "Mindfulness, Medical Ethics, and Constructive Dialogue," which explores the impact of mindfulness exercises in a medical ethics class aimed at improving dialogue around morally and politically sensitive topics.
Rich is also looking for philosophy PhD students to apply for the Character Forward Doctoral Fellowship. The fellow would teach a half-credit section of Ethics & Technology in the Spring and gain a front-row seat to how philosophy can be applied in an engineering school.
Mary Purcell was interviewed by Bass Connections about her work as project manager and research lead for Project Vox.
Maya Kronfeld has been named a Distinguished External Junior Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center, where she will spend the academic year 2026-2027 for her research leave.
Now Soliciting: A New Monthly Column
As you are all aware, our beloved advice columnist, Tayfun Gur, has sadly departed our department. No one can replace the particular artistry he brought to his monthly advice column. But if you have an idea for a monthly column you would like to write, please send a pitch to lindsay.huth@duke.edu for consideration.