College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences > Academics > Philosophy > About > PhDs Available for Appointment

PhDs Available for Appointment

​​​​​​​​​​​We are proud to present the following recent graduates and advanced doctoral students who are currently available for academic appointment.

Doctoral students at DePaul study the history of philosophy from a broad, though not exclusively, European perspective and work with some of the leading scholars in contemporary Continental thought, German Idealism, social and political theory, the history of philosophy, and ethics. Our students take a total of 27 courses with distribution requirement across the history of philosophy, pass exams in two foreign languages relevant to their area of specialization, defend a doctoral dissertation, and acquire extensive teaching experience beginning in the third year of the doctoral program. Many of our students also receive prestigious independent fellowships and awards, and spend extended periods of study at European institutions. DePaul University’s doctoral students are thus uniquely qualified to teach the history of philosophy from a broadly European perspective.

Curriculum Vitae

We welcome inquiries about any of these candidates.​​​​

NameEmailPhone
Elizabeth Millán Brusslan, Chair emillanb@depaul.edu 773-325-1145
Kevin Thompson, Director of Graduate Studies kthomp12@depaul.edu 773-325-4886
Sean Kirkland, Director​ of Placement
 skirkla1@depaul.edu
 773-325-4898

Curriculum Vitae

ericaldieri@gmail.com 

Eric Aldieri was born and raised in Central Connecticut. He received his BA in Philosophy and Humanities from Villanova University in 2017, his MA in Philosophy from DePaul University in 2019, and will defend his dissertation at DePaul in December 2022. His research focuses on the concept of salvation in Deleuze's work and the debt that this concept has to Spinoza's philosophy. He is also a translator of French Spinozism for Edinburgh University's Spinoza Series. You can find him at ericaldieri@gmail.com.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

1) Introduction to Philosophy
2) Business Ethics
3) Ethics & Society
4) Love, Hatred, and Resentment
5) Philosophy of God

Curriculum Vitae

www.cfcoates.com

ccoates@depaul.edu

Cameron received his BA from St. John’s College, his MA in Philosophy from Loyola University Chicago, and recently defended his dissertation at DePaul University. His research focuses on Ancient Greek philosophy (especially ontology, biology, natural philosophy, and political theory). Cameron’s dissertation, Aristotle on the Concept of Life, examines Aristotle’s approach to the problem of defining life in light of its immense diversity and its tricky edge cases. Cameron’s research has appeared in Phronesis and in Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
At the University of the South (Sewanee):

• Indian Philosophy (2 sections)

• Business Ethics (3 sections)

• Topics in Philosophy (Writing Intensive) (4 sections)

At DePaul University:

• Introduction to Philosophy (4 sections)

Curriculum Vitae

Bfrazers@depaul.edu

Benjamin received his BA from the University of Colorado at Denver, where he studied Ancient philosophy and Spinoza. He earned his MA and Ph.D. from DePaul for his dissertation “A Discourse of the Non-Discursive in Plato and Pseudo-Dionysius. His primary interests are in Ancient philosophy, particularly Plato’s erotic dialogues, and mysticism. He also focuses on Continental philosophy, phenomenology, and the philosophy of religion.

Ben's research is in the field of Platonic philosophy. In his dissertation, he set out to study two figures in the tradition of Western thought who seem, at least at moments or under a certain interpretation, to be interested in a project of thinking precisely that which is beyond logic and the ordering power of language—Plato and Dionysius the Areopagite. He then shows how these earlier projects resonate with the projects of Heidegger, Bataille, and Derrida. Moving from the 4th century B.C.E. to (likely) the 7th  and then 20th centuries C.E., his dissertation is a very well-defined discussion of the same basic dynamic, how to bring the extra-discursive into discourse. Plato has recourse often to myth and erōs while Dionysius resorts to self-contradictory speech (the via negativa), while the 20th century thinkers with which he deals all exhibit similar tactics—Heidegger pushes philosophy toward poetry and tautological philosophical speech, Bataille into the literary, and Derrida into the modes of deconstructive analysis. Dealing ably with all of these figures and their logics of illogic, Ben is ultimately concerned with how we come together into something like a community or into a group obligated to one another in ethical ways when we find ourselves faced with that which frustrates our ability to articulate or understand it.    

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

1)    Introduction to Philosophy 2007–2015
2)    Multiculturalism 2008
3)    Business Ethics 2009
4)    Love, Hatred, and Resentment 2010–2016
5)    Mysticism: Past to Present 2010–16
6)    Medieval philosophy 2012–2014
7)    Death and the City 2013, 2015
8)    Philosophy of God 2015–16


https://planderrechecardillo.com

planderr@depaul.edu 

Paula Landerreche Cardillo is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago. She received her MA in Philosophy with a minor on Psychoanalytic Theory from The New School for Social Research, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is originally from Mexico City, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at Universidad Iberoamericana. Her research focuses on a feminist and decolonial critique of philosophical discourse as well as the relation between aesthetics and politics in the exclusion of certain forms of art from philosophical and political discourse. Her dissertation examines the ways the body shapes political and philosophical discourse from a feminist and decolonial perspective. She mainly engages with the work of Adriana Cavarero and her attention to the place of the body in the history of political philosophy; however, she takes Cavarero’s work outside of the European context to see its potential to think the Latin American Post-colony.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

2020-present

DePaul University, Department of Philosophy, Teaching Fellow (instructor of record, all self-designed courses) PHL 233/LGQ297: Issues in Sex and Gender (Fall 2022) PHL 240: Love, Hatred and Resentment (Summer 2022) LSP 200: Race, Power and Resistance (Winter 2021) LSP 200: Multiculturalism in the United States (Fall 2021) PHL 238: Feminist Philosophies (Fall 2021) PHL 100: Introduction to Philosophy (2 sections Fall 2020, 2 sections Winter 2021- all taught online)

2020-2021

CENTRO|Diseño, Cine Televisión, Adjunct Professor (instructor of record, taught in Spanish, online) STEAM Lab Philosophy Module, Topic: Self-Knowledge (2 sections Fall 2020, 3 sections Spring 2021)

2018 - 2020

DePaul University, Department of Philosophy, Teaching Assistant Philosophical Inquiry, Honors Class, Frédéric Seyler Plato, Michael Naas Philosophy of Law, Peg Birmingham Issues in Sex and Gender, Fanny Söderbäck

2018

Eugene Lang College, Course Assistant; Contemporary Independent Cinema, Caveh Zahedi

Curriculum Vitae

jsinger8@depaul.edu 

I received my BA with Honors from Dalhousie University in European Studies, where I studied Ancient Philosophy and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. I completed my MA at the University of Guelph, and wrote my major research paper on Aristotle's Politics (part of which is published in a forthcoming edited volume by Bloomsbury Press, The Animal with Logos: Aristotle on Human Nature). Throughout my studies, my primary interest has been German Idealism, particularly the work of Hegel. I am also well-versed in Ancient Philosophy, Phenomenology, and Biomedical Ethics, and hold certification in Business Ethics.

My dissertation, Hegel's Critique of Skepticism: Concept, Judgment, and Syllogism, presents Hegel’s account of subjectivity in the Logic as both a justification of, and response to, Pyrrhonian skepticism. The Pyrrhonian skeptics show that reason cannot be justified without recourse to an infinite regression of premises, a brute foundation, or a circular argument. I argue that by following certain insights of Kant and Jacobi, Hegel adopts a broader conception of reason than the ancient skeptics. For Hegel, reason must be a dynamic process that expresses its structure and activity over the course of determining itself. As a result, through his treatment of the concept, judgment, and syllogism, Hegel presents a critique of Pyrronian skepticism, which demonstrates that certain knowledge is immune to doubt, while proving the necessity of skepticism within certain limits.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

Biomedical Ethics (Summer 2022 [Online], Fall 2020 [Online], Spring 2019, Fall 2016)

Business Ethics (Fall 2022 [Online], Spring 2019, Winter 2017, Fall 2016)

Crime and Punishment (Fall 2021 [F2F])

Intro to Philosophy (Summer 2021 [Online], Winter 2018, Fall 2015)

Love, Hatred, and Resentment (Winter 2018) Philosophy of God (Spring 2020 [Online], Winter 2018)

Curriculum Vitae

jsinger4@depaul.edu 

Jonathan (J.D.) earned his BA (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and with departmental honors) in Philosophy from Muhlenberg College, and earned his PhD (with distinction) here at DePaul University in 2020. J.D. is interested in issues that span phenomenology, ethics, social and political theory, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. His research focuses on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, on questions pertaining to the relationship between human and non-human life, and, more generally, on questions pertaining to the nature of community and the relationship between ontology and ethics/politics. In his dissertation, Sharing the 'Flesh of the World': Alterity, Animality, and Radical Community in Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy, he argues that Merleau-Ponty's philosophy (especially as it is developed in his later writings) offers resources for dismantling the anthropocentric categories and presuppositions that have shaped much of Western philosophy, as well as resources for conceptualizing a non-anthropocentric understanding of moral and political community - one that does not reinscribe the very anthropocentricity it opposes, which is a problem that, he argues, afflicts traditional critiques of anthropocentrism in ethical and political theory. He is currently working on adapting his dissertation into two books (the first of which is nearly complete and currently under consideration at SUNY Press), as well as several papers on phenomenology and ethical theory that engage with contemporary feminist ethics and epistemology, philosophy of race, and disability studies.

At DePaul, J.D. received the Michael Mezey Excellence in Teaching Award.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

DePaul University:

Philosophy and Its Issues (8 sections)

Ethical Theories (7 sections)

Business Ethics (10 sections)

Critical Thinking (12 sections)

Loyola University–Chicago

Philosophy and Persons (2 sections)

Ethics (1 section)

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