Department News

Message from the Chair

Welcome!

We begin the new academic year with much to celebrate. Two new colleagues are joining us: Assistant Professors Xueyin (Snow) Zhang and Verónica Gómez Sánchez. Kristin Primus has now been promoted to the ranks of tenured faculty. And we welcome an outstanding cohort of first-year philosophy graduate students: Will Dempsey, Kaden McMillan, Adrian Ommundsen, Patrick Pan, Jonathan Tanaka, and Megan Wu, as well as an impressive group of new students in the Program in Logic and Methodology of Science: Daniel Gonzalez, Zakkai Goriely, and Jacob Parish. These young scholars join us from outstanding colleges and universities around the world. Welcome!

I am also very pleased to announce that Professor John Carriero, the distinguished specialist in early modern philosophy, from UCLA, will be in residence with us as Visiting Professor starting this semester. Welcome, John!

A warm welcome also to the visiting scholars and also visiting student researchers who join us at the invitation of our faculty. We are grateful for the energy and invention these philosophers bring to us. This year we are joined by the visiting student researchers Chumiao Chen, Due Fang, Shuwen Liu, William Mathorne, Natalie Runkle, Zhiwei Yang, as well as by the visiting scholars Dr. Wacyl Azzouz, Dr. Joseph Kassman-Tod, Professor Andrea Kern, and Dr. B. Scot Rousse. We are also very lucky to have with us as a visiting faculty member this semester Professor Roy Tzohar, from the Asian Studies Department and the Philosophy Department at Tel Aviv University.

As our community welcomes new members, let us also once more offer the warmest congratulations – and in some cases bid adieu – to our newest PhDs Michael Arsenault, Emily Perry and Joseph Kassman-Tod, as well as to the many undergraduates who have graduated this past spring with bachelors degrees in Philosophy.

We have a very active docket of colloquia and special lectures this academic year. Information can be found on the department web site here: https://philosophy.berkeley.edu/events. I look forward to see you at these important events.

– Alva Noë

August 23, 2023