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.

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
Richard A. Lee Jr., Placement Director rlee17@depaul.edu 773-325-4502
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


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