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Graduate Student Bios

​​​​​​​​Eric Aldieri
Eric Aldieri grew up in Central Connecticut and received his BA in Philosophy from Villanova University. He is currently writing a dissertation on Deleuze's reception of Spinoza, specifically in relation to its soteriological themes. 

Jessica Avery
Jessica earned a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of New Mexico, where she completed an honors thesis on existentialism in Harry Potter. She received her M.A. in philosophy from DePaul University. Her primary areas of interest include 19th and 20th century continental philosophy, philosophy of science, existentialism, philosophy of literature, hermeneutics, and philosophy of film. Jessica is particularly concerned with the intersection of philosophy and science, and her most recent work focuses on nihilism as it relates to science and technology.

Ellery Beard
Born and raised in Alabama, Ellery received his BA in Philosophy & Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation is a study of emanation in Plotinus, including its precursors in Plato and Aristotle and its afterlife in modern philosophy. He is also a fourfold division of nature respecter (Uncreated Creator, Created Creator, Created Non-Creator, Uncreated Non-Creator). Outside of philosophy, Ellery enjoys pulp sword & sorcery novels, old-school heavy metal, and the music dramas of Richard Wagner.

Joseph Bermas-Dawes
Joseph Bermas-Dawes received his BA from Macalester College (St. Paul, MN) in 2017 with a philosophy major, German studies minor, and concentration in critical theory. He is interested in modern and contemporary social and political philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the ontology of immanence. Joseph also works on ethical and political issues related to comedy and laughter. Outside of philosophy, Joseph enjoys cooking, playing video games, watching movies, and going on runs along Lake Michigan.

Joel Bock
Joel received his BA in philosophy from Colorado College, his MA in German Studies from Middlebury College, and his MA in philosophy from DePaul University. He has also participated in academic exchange programs through Maastricht University, the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He is currently writing his dissertation on the concepts of work and leisure in the philosophies of Aristotle, Hegel, and Bernard Stiegler. His main research interests include the philosophy of technology, Ancient Greek philosophy, and 19th and 20th century German philosophy. Joel also works as a graduate writing tutor in DePaul’s University Center for Writing-based Learning, and he enjoys traveling, hiking, watching basketball, and French cheeses.

Harrison Brennan 
Harrison received BA degrees in philosophy, economics, international politics, and Asian studies from the Pennsylvania State University. He is interested in the intersection of metaphysics, the philosophy of technology, and political philosophy within 20th century continental thought, specifically within the work of Deleuze, Foucault, and Heidegger. Harrison’s recent work focuses on control societies, temporality, and algorithmic modulations of the future.

Laura Campos
Laura was born and raised in Austin, Texas and completed her BA in Philosophy and Classical Studies at Texas A&M University. Her research is focused on contemporary phenomenological approaches to questions about the soul and divine and human persons in Medieval and Ancient Greek philosophy.

Cameron Coates
Cameron received his BA from St. John’s College (Annapolis, MD) and his MA in Philosophy from Loyola University (Chicago, IL). His research focuses on Greek philosophy (especially ontology, natural philosophy, and political theory). His dissertation investigates Aristotle’s ontology of life. Cameron’s research has appeared in Phronesis and in Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought

Originally from Connecticut, Greg received his BS with a double major in mathematics and philosophy from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and his MA in philosophy from Boston College. He is interested in questions which emerge at the intersections of aesthetics and politics and in figures including Marx, Kant, and the first generation of the Frankfurt School.

Juan was born in Chile but lived most of his life in Argentina. He received his BA in Philosophy from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, in Mendoza, Argentina. His research interests include greek and modern political philosophy (especially Aristotle and Carl Schmitt), 20th century german philosophy (Heidegger and Hartmann), and recent contemporary philosophy (especially Bifo Berardi, Mark Fisher, Bolivar Echeverría. 

Will received his BA in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and his MA in Philosophy from Duquesne University. He studies the transition from late medieval to early modern philosophy, along with its reception in twentieth-century historicist thought. He currently serves as the Assistant Editor of Philosophy Today.

Yohanes graduated from The Widya Sasana School of Philosophy and Theology, Malang, Indonesia, both for his BA and Master Program. His recent research focuses on two areas; religion in the public sphere in Habermas' perspective and the east philosophy in the architecture of Candi Borobudur (Borobudur Temple), one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world, located in Indonesia.

Bio coming soon

John received his BA in Philosophy from SUNY Purchase. His research interests include theology, political philosophy (Schmitt, Bloch, Agamben, Marx and Foucault) and German philosophy (Kant, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and Adorno). Currently, he is focused on Heidegger's discussions of nuclear weapons and critiques of it by Günther Anders. ​​

Carlie earned her BA in Philosophy from the University of North Dakota. Her research interests include political economy, feminism, environmental philosophy and 20th century continental thought. Her dissertation project is presenting a reading of Georges Bataille as an ecological thinker, and will aim to place his theory of general economy in conversation with contemporary Eco-Marxist and environmental thought.

M.Kemal Isik is a teaching fellow and doctoral candidate in the philosophy department. His research focuses mainly on Ancient Greek thinking, (esp. Greek tragedy and Pre-Socratic thinking) 19th century German philosophy (mainly Nietzsche) and phenomenology, with an
emphasis on philosophical discussions concerning space and time. Kemal received his BA from Bogazici University, Istanbul, and his MA and MPhil from KU Leuven. His dissertation project focuses on eternal recurrence of the same and how it relates to the Greek experience of temporality in pre-Socratic thinking (particularly Homer, Aeschylus, and Heraclitus) and to the practice of sacrifice in the Greek mystery cults.

Jessica Jessen has received an interdisciplinary Bachelor's degree in playwriting and philosophy from the Johnston Center at the University of Redlands. Her primary philosophical interests include the role of the feminine in the philosophy of Nietzsche, the aesthetics and philosophy of theater, and existentialist theory. She is presently working on her dissertation on the figure of Ariadne in Nietzsche's work. 

​​​​​Brett received h​​​​​​​​is BA from Loyola University-Chicago in Philosophy and English Literature. His research interests include contemporary French philosophy, political philosophy, and psychoanalysis.

Val received their BA in Philosophy, History, and Women’s Studies from the University of Georgia. Their current research interests include French feminist receptions of psychoanalysis, particularly in Irigaray, Kristeva, Clément, and Kofman. Their most recent project engages Freud and Anzaldúa in contemporary trauma theory. They also work as a graduate student mentor for the Trio McNair Scholars Program, which aims to diversify higher education.

Amelia received her BA in Philosophy and Literature from the University of Mary. Her main interests include German Idealism, (especially Kant’s aesthetics), ethics and metaethics, as well as Philosophy of Religion, and feminist perspectives on all of these. In addition to philosophy, she is interested in classical music and literature.

Paula Landerreche Cardillo is a doctoral candidate in the Philosophy department at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. Originally from Mexico City, she earned her Bachelor's in Philosophy from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and her MA in Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Theory at the New School for Social Research (NSSR). She also holds a Graduate Certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies from the NSSR. Her research areas are feminist philosophy, decolonial and postcolonial theory, aesthetics, and philosophy of art (especially performing arts). She is currently working on a dissertation entitled "Difference and the Space of the Commons in Feminist and Decolonial Thinking." She is co-founder and member of the Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Chapter at DePaul, and is committed to diversifying the field of Philosophy. 

Kannon received his BA in Philosophy, BA in Environmental Studies, and minor in Classics from Loyola University-Chicago. He is primarily interested in the phenomenology and epistemology of Husserl and Heidegger in relation to the transcendental idealist projects of Kant and Fichte. Particularly, the paradoxes of subjectivity in architectonic systems. He is additionally interested in the meta-philosophical reflections of Rorty and Gadamer in the areas of foundationalism and hermeneutics, respectively. ​ 

Aurora received her BA in philosophy with minors in German Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Oregon. Her main research areas are Social and Political Philosophy, 19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy (especially Arendt and Foucault), Genealogy, Trauma Theory and Feminist Philosophy. She is also interested in bioethics and its critics, particularly within interdisciplinary and applied ethical contexts. Her approach to bioethics is informed by Disability Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Queer Theory.

Originally from Seattle, Washington, Mary completed her BA in philosophy at Whitman College. Her areas of interest include political philosophy, existentialism, and deconstruction. She currently works on psychoanalysis, focusing on questions related to incompatibility, quantitative/qualitative thresholds of excitation, and the ~responsibilities~ of the ego.

María-Victoria received her BA and MA in Political Science with an emphasis in philosophy from Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia. And an MA in Philosophy and Contemporary Thought from Diego Portales University in Santiago de Chile. Her primary research interest focuses on the philosophy of architecture and on the spatial nature of thought in contemporary feminist philosophy and intersectional theory. She is also interested in the work of Hannah Arendt and her reception in French philosophy and theory, as well as in the relationship between aesthetics and politics. Maria-Victoria has also done some work for architectural projects. She received a grant in 2019 from the Graham Foundation for the public program “Behind the Wall: pedagogical exercises for restoring citizenship” in the framework of a project on spaces for restorative justice.

Caroline Loftus is from Indiana and received a B.A. in philosophy and sociology from Grinnell College in Iowa. Their current interests revolve around German Idealism, psychoanalytic theory, and the relationship between philosophy and literature. 

Bio coming soon

Bio coming soon

Bryan received his BA in Liberal Arts from Shimer College and his MA in Philosophy at Miami University of Ohio, has participated in study abroad programs at Oxford University and l'École Normale Supérieure, and has studied psychodynamic therapeutic practices at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. He specializes in psychoanalysis and 20th century French philosophy and is writing his dissertation on the theories of memory, experience, drive, and the unconscious developed contemporaneously by Sigmund Freud and Henri Bergson.

Jack received his BA in philosophy from Grinnell College in Iowa. His primary area of interest is contemporary French philosophy, focusing on themes of science, ideology, and epistemology. Specifically, he is interested in influence of French historical epistemology on the work of Louis Althusser, Gilles Deleuze, and Alain Badiou.​

Bio coming soon

Ethan A. Moscoso is a second year student who earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in Spanish and Philosophy at Grinnell College. His research engages philosophy, literature and art to assess the relationship between the Global North and the Global South, the state of religion in the colonial and contemporary world(s), the weaponization of gender and sexuality to create domains of isolation and stigmatization, and the status of Earth as a philosophical concept and divine entity. His research investigates the subjectivity of those who, while living in the Global North, maintain ties with the Global South, to assess how this relationship (interpreted both as a subjectivity itself as well as an entity with its own ‘exstensio’) can either affirm coloniality, or disrupt its logics. The decolonization of time, fluids, and mourning is central to his approach to these investigations and has led him to study figures such as Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Gil Anidjar, padre Vicente Zaruma Quizhpilema, Ibn Arabi, Julia Kristeva and Diamanda Galás. Moscoso is fluent in English and Spanish, proficient in Portuguese, and has taken classes in Latin and Ecuadorian Kichwa. He is committed to expanding the number of languages in which philosophy is written and discussed.

Bio coming soon

Evan O'Donnell received his BA in Philosophy from Connecticut College. His main interests include Pyrrhonian skepticism, German idealism (and Kant more specifically), and contemporary French philosophy, especially the work of Gilles Deleuze.

Dan Perlman is a doctoral candidate in the philosophy department, currently writing a dissertation on the phenomenological idea of nature and the historical a priori, which covers contemporary efforts to naturalize phenomenology as well as figures including Husserl, Fink, and Merleau-Ponty. He received a BA in Philosophy from Bard College. His main research area is phenomenology, particularly its interdisciplinary application in various fields including cognitive science, archaeology, and mental health care. He is also interested in science and technology studies, historical ontology, and theories of enactive cognition. He is completing a certificate in bioethics. He has taught courses on philosophy and technology, philosophy and film, business ethics, bioethics, multiculturalism, and logic.

Héctor has a BA in philosophy from Macalester College, an MSc degree from the LSE (Political Theory), and an MA degree in Continental Philosophy (University of Warwick). While a student at DePaul, he also undertook a yearlong exchange program at the École normale supérieure in Paris. He is interested in the history of philosophy and contemporary European philosophy, and his PhD dissertation attempts to bridge the gap between phenomenology and the French Spiritualist tradition, through questions related to perception, knowledge, affectivity, and willing (and, by extension, science, art, and the living subject). 

Julian Rios Acuña
Julian has his BA in Liberal Arts from St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM, and an MA in Philosophy from DePaul University. His areas of focus are social and political philosophy, Latin American philosophy, and critical colonial studies including postcolonial and decolonial theory. Julian is also interested in questions of race and racism in the US. He is currently working on a dissertation that puts into dialogue the methodologies of Michel Foucault, Santiago Castro-Gomez, and Achille Mbembe with the goal of finding ways to elaborate philosophical critiques of contemporary postcolonial violence. 

Originally from Istanbul, Ece earned her BA in psychology from Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey, her MA in philosophy from KU Leuven, Belgium. She also completed the phenomenology module coursework in the MPhil program at KU Leuven. Her research focuses on the notion of affect in relation to the problem of border(ing) and transformation in the social and political field. She mainly works on Deleuze, Foucault, and Spinoza. Her primary areas of interest are 20th century French philosophy, early modern philosophy, and social and political philosophy.

Originally from California, Sarah completed her BA in Religious Studies at Beloit College and has since earned an MA in Philosophy here at DePaul. Her interests lie at the intersection of feminist philosophy, philosophy of religion, and ethics. Her current research aims to bring feminist thought (especially the work of Luce Irigaray) into conversation with Christian theology on questions concerning relationality, mortality, and the human desire for transcendence.

Jacob is a PhD candidate currently writing his dissertation on Hegel’s account of the syllogism. He received a BA in European Studies from Dalhousie University and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Guelph. His research interests focus on German Idealism, ancient philosophy, and questions concerning the relation between logic and metaphysics.

Bilgesu is a teaching fellow and PhD candidate at DePaul University’s Department of Philosophy. She received her BA in Philosophy and Sociology from Bogazici University, Turkey, and her MA from Galatasaray University, Turkey. Her dissertation is an intersectional analysis of the politics of violence over dead bodies in the history of the modern state. Her research interests include 20th century political philosophy, philosophy of cinema, psychoanalysis and theories of affect. She is a freelance writer and translator, and works as a Supervising Media Genome Analyst at Katch Media Data Analytics.

Çiçek Yavuz
Çiçek is a first year doctoral student at DePaul. She is from Bodrum, Turkey and got her BA in philosophy from Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Her interests span the history of philosophy with a particular focus on 19th century German thought, including German idealism (esp. Hegel) and German romanticism. Her thematic interests include metaphysics, the philosophy of art and music and the philosophy of nature.

Ludovico received both his B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Essex, in the UK. His research focuses primarily on Ancient Philosophy, esp. Plato and Aristotle, German post-Kantian philosophy, esp. Hegel and Nietzsche, and on the intersection of themes of morality, psychology and ontology.