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Philosophy News Update July 2019
Department news heading into summer.
Enrollment for fall 2019 has started – this term, we’re encouraging undergrad philosophers to Think! PHILosophy in their course registrations. The department has 100-level WQB solutions, Certificates in Ethics and Science, a new joint major in Business, Philosophy and the Law, and much more to boost your subject major. Check our undergrad pages for details.
MA Defenses
On Friday, 19 July Kelsey Vicars defended her MA professional paper, "The Worst of All Possible Words: Slurs, Reappropriation, and Bracketing".
Awards and Publications
Congratulations to assistant professor, Nicolas Fillion who is one of this year’s winners in the FASS Cormack Teaching Awards. We’re very pleased to see back-to-back awards recognizing SFU Philosophy teaching excellence, especially since this follows Undergraduate Chair, Dai Heide’s award in 2018.
Congratulations also to Convocation Award winner, Majka Hahn, whose outstanding academic achievement and leadership have been recognized by FASS with the Robert C. Brown Award.
Majka, who graduates with a joint major in Political Science and Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, a minor in Philosophy, and a Certificate in Ethics with a concentration in Ethics and Global Justice, also receives a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant to start her master's degree in Political Science at McGill University this fall. We wish her a bright future.
Conferences and Presentations
Holly Andersen took part in a symposium on Unculturable Organisms in the Big Data Era at the biennial ISHPSSB (International Studies in the History Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology) meeting in Oslo earlier in July.
Nic Fillion took part in a professional development workshop for lower mainland BC teachers recently. He writes: "The Department of Philosophy was happy to partner with Facing History and Ourselves, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, and the British Columbia Social Studies Teachers Association in a professional development workshop ‘Foundations for Genocide Studies: Holocaust and Human Behaviour,’ held at SFU’s Harbour Centre on June 24-25 and at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre on June 26."
"The motto of Facing History and Ourselves is: ‘People make choices. Choices make history.’ Accordingly, under the expert guidance of Senior Program Associate Jasmine Wong, the workshop was devoted to helping educators refine their understanding of how the holocaust came to happen, as well as their understanding of effective strategies to teach such delicate matters that relate history to currently relevant ethical discussions."
BC high school teachers interested in developing their students’ interest in ethical issues should take a look at our invitation for the next BC Ethics Bowl.
Upcoming
Undergraduate chair, Dai Heide will be presenting "Kant on Real Predication and the Ontological Argument: An Interpretive Dilemma" at the International Kant Congress in Oslo at the beginning of August.