Steven Jauss, Assistant Professor
Office: Stabler Hall, Room 307-H
Phone: (501) 683-7174
Email: sajauss@ualr.edu
Introduction
Spring of 2007 will be my first spring spent as a regular faculty member in the Department of Philosophy & Liberal Studies and my twenty-first spent in Little Rock. My graduate background is mainly in philosophy, a field I first became interested in while working toward a BA in music. I am still interested in music—and linguistics and interdisciplinary studies, among other areas I have studied—so I am very pleased to be joining a department that welcomes students with broad interests and diverse post-degree plans.
When not teaching or conducting research, I am often doing something else I enjoy, such as cooking for my family, snowshoeing, spending time with a book or film, or playing or listening to music.
Teaching Interests
Ethics & Society, Critical Thinking, Introduction to Philosophy, and various courses and seminars in and around philosophy of the arts and history of philosophy are the courses I have taught most often in recent years, though I also enjoy teaching interdisciplinary and “applied” topics, as well as various topics and debates in analytic philosophy.
My training is largely historical and interdisciplinary in character, and my approach to teaching reflects that background: I enjoy bringing my historian’s curiosity to the philosophy classroom, and I also enjoy the challenge of working with students to come to terms with prominent debates that cross disciplinary borders.
Areas of Specialization: Aesthetics & Philosophy of the Arts, Ethics, History of Modern Philosophy
Areas of Competence: Applied Ethics, History of Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Language & Mind
Research Interests
My current and recent research can be divided into two broad lines. First, I have published and/or presented a handful of papers on topics in the history of eighteenth century philosophy, and several more papers in this area are in progress. Most of these papers explore aspects of the evolving relation between philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and the new philosophical discipline of aesthetics. Second, my PhD thesis (and some related papers in progress) address topics in contemporary aesthetics, ethics, and theory of value, with a special focus on the controversial notion of “interaction” between evaluative domains.
I have also been involved at times in projects on other topics, including global bioethics (as the co-editor of a book manuscript in progress), theories of quotation in linguistics and philosophy of language (the subject of my MA thesis), and topics in history of ancient Greek philosophy.
Selected Professional Activities
- “Associationism and Taste Theory in Archibald Alison’s Essays,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Fall 2006): 415-428. (8,000 words)
- Review of Art and Enlightenment: Scottish Aesthetics in the Eighteenth Century, The American Society for Aesthetics Newsletter, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2006): 4-5. (1,400 words)
- “Hume and Dubos on the Paradox of Tragedy,” 32nd Annual Meeting of the International Hume Society, Toronto, Canada (Summer 2005)
- “Complete Associationism and ‘Comprehensive Taste’ in Alison’s Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste,” 3rd International Reid Symposium on Scottish Philosophy, Aberdeen, Scotland (Summer 2004)
- “Shaftesbury on the Autonomy of the Aesthetic Domain,” MidSouth Philosophy Conference, University of Memphis (Spring 2001); University of Pennsylvania Graduate Humanities Forum (Spring 2001)
- “Socratic Irony and Socratic Deception,” Arkansas Philosophical Association Conference, University of Arkansas at Little Rock (2000); MidSouth Philosophy Conference, University of Memphis (2000)
Educational Background
Ph.D. Philosophy, 2006 (expected)
University of Pennsylvania
M.A. Liberal Studies (Major: Linguistics & Literary Studies/Minor: Philosophy), 2000
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
B.A. Music History & Literature & B.A. Philosophy, 1997
University of Arkansas at Little Rock/Donaghey Scholars Program