Departmental News
- Nico Orlandi awarded DAAD international guest professorship
Nico Orlandi has been awarded a DAAD international guest professorship at Ruhr University Bochum. Professor Orlandi will teach courses and collaborate on research with Professor Tobias Schlicht in Spring quarter 2026. Congratulations, Nico! - E. Hande Tuna Named Quinn Fellow at NHC
We are delighted to announce that Emine Hande Tuna has been awarded a prestigious fellowship at the National Humanities Center for the 2025–26 academic year. Selected from a highly competitive pool of 588 applicants, she will join a cohort of 32 distinguished scholars as part of the Center’s forty-eighth class of resident fellows. Professor Tuna has been named the Quinn Fellow. During her time at the Center, she will be completing her second book, Imaginative Resistance, which is under contract with Oxford University Press. The book offers the first comprehensive account of the philosophical puzzle known as imaginative resistance, drawing together insights from… Read more: E. Hande Tuna Named Quinn Fellow at NHC - Welcome to Sara Bernstein, new faculty member and new Philosophy Chair
Sara Bernstein joined the faculty of the Philosophy Department as our new chair on July 1, 2025. Sara specializes in metaphysics, especially the metaphysics of causation, and in related topics in ethics and the law. Sara has additional interests in the metaphysics of time and time travel, and in the metaphysics of feminist theory. - Welcome to Daniel Nolan, new faculty member
Daniel Nolan joined the faculty in July 2025. Daniel specializes in metaphysics, especially hyperintensionality and the use of impossible worlds to resolve metaphysical problems. Daniel has additional interests in possible worlds, dispositions, states of affairs, universals and particulars, parts and wholes, time and space, the metaphysics of vagueness, and methodology in metaphysics. - Queer Aɸ Conference held at UCSC
The Queer Analytic Philosophy Conference was held at UCSC April 12-13, 2025. The conference, organized by Caro Flores, Lauren Lyons, and Nico Orlandi, brought together scholars from all over the globe to to discuss analytic philosophy from a queer perspective and strategize about the future. See the program here.
Departmental Events
- Philosophy Colloquium: Daniela Dover
Thursday, April 2nd, 2026, 3:15 –
Speaker Daniela Dover will give a talk followed by a Q&A
- Philosophy Colloquium: Amelia Wirts
Thursday, March 12th, 2026, 3:15 –
Speaker Amelia Wirts will give a talk followed by a Q&A
- Philosophy Colloquium: Zoe Drayson
Thursday, February 19th, 2026, 3:15 –
Speaker Zoe Drayson will give a talk followed by a Q&A
- Fall Grad Forum
Tuesday, October 14th – 3:15-5:00 – Philosophy Graduate Students and Faculty are invited to the Fall Grad Forum.
- Philosophy Colloquium: Geoff Lee
Thursday, November 13th, 2025, 3:15 –
Speaker Geoff Lee will give a talk followed by a Q&A
- Philosophy Colloquium: Lowry Pressly
Thursday, October 9th, 2025, 3:15 –
Speaker Lowry Pressly will give a talk titled Talk to a Human . . . Speak to a Human [. . .] On AI Agents as Partners in Democratic Deliberation, followed by a Q&A.
Abstract: There is a rapidly developing normative literature concerning the potential effects of artificial intelligence on the deliberative, epistemic, representative, and policymaking dimensions of democratic governance. By contrast, the effects of AI on the experience of citizenship and civic education have received relatively little attention. This paper looks to the sorts of generative artificial intelligence that have recently emerged as something approximating human interlocutors to consider what may be lost (and perhaps gained) when highly sophisticated machine interlocutors become not just an element of civic discourse but partners in democratic deliberation.
- MAP x Philosophical Slug Society Mixer
Wednesday, October 8th, 2025, 4:30-6pm, Humanities 2 Room 259
Join us Wednesday 10/8 from 4:30-6pm in Humanities 2 Room 259 for a fun social mixer to learn more about our 🎉 exciting upcoming events 🎉 for the year and how to get more involved with Minorities and Philosophy and the Philosophical Slug Society!
More information on the MAP UCSC Insta.
- Welcome Week 2025
Monday, September 22nd, 2:30-3:30 –
Prospective and current students are invited to join the Philosophy Department’s 2025 Welcome Week event.