Graduates
Prospective Students
Admissions
Current Students
Support
Community
1. Departmental Groups
2. Minorities and Philosophy (MAP)
3. Events
Opportunities

Departmental Groups

Graduates
Prospective Students
Admissions
Current Students
Support
Community
1. Departmental Groups
2. Minorities and Philosophy (MAP)
3. Events
Opportunities

For more information about these groups, or to be added to an email group, email the respective contact(s) listed for each group below.

Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshops

Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshops (RIWs) are graduate student oriented groups that meet regularly throughout the year to discuss readings on a particular interdisciplinary topic, workshop one another’s papers, and sponsor a public lecture or facilitate a workshop with an outside speaker.

Knowledge, Information, and Society (KIS)

Mind and Moral Psychology (MMP)

Contacts: Elizabeth Beckman, Paul de Font-Reaulx, Aaron Glasser

Website: https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/mmp/home

The Mind and Moral Psychology Working Group (MMP) is an interdisciplinary group coordinated by Philosophy graduate students at the University of Michigan. MMP meets throughout the academic year to discuss and workshop papers relevant to issues in philosophy of mind, moral psychology, and the cognitive sciences.

Race, Gender, and Feminist Philosophy (RGFP)

Contact: race.gender.femphil@umich.edu

Website: https://umracegenderriw.wixsite.com/rgfp

The Race, Gender, and Feminist Philosophy Working Group aims to bring together graduate students and faculty members interested in feminist theory and philosophical work on race and gender. Literatures on race and gender have developed in various disciplines with different methodologies and target phenomena, but the various insights they have cultivated are not always translated across disciplinary boundaries. This group works to ameliorate these shortcomings by working to bring related work to bear on philosophical approaches to these topics, and examining potential areas of cooperation between philosophy and other disciplines working on feminist approaches to race and gender.

Reading Groups

Reading groups typically form around a theme, and are often held in the summer when coursework and teaching loads are light.

Latin American Philosophy (LAP)

Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Science

Discussion Groups

Discussion groups primarily organize talks.

Aesthetics Discussion Group (ADG)

Ethics Discussion Group (EDGe)

Philosophy of Science etc. (PoSe)

Working Groups

Working groups bring together graduate students and faculty to workshop drafts in a constructive environment, or simply to work on papers/dissertations/job market materials/etc together, sharing writing goals and holding one another accountable for meeting them.

Early Modern Philosophy Working Group

Contact: Sean Costello, Lila Graham, Andrew Mayo, Prof. Tad Schmaltz

The purpose of the Early Modern Philosophy Working Group (EMPWG) is to bring together scholars and graduate students from various departments within the University of Michigan – including the Departments of Philosophy, Classical Studies, and Asian Languages & Cultures – in order to promote interdisciplinary research on early modern philosophy. The historical period that the EMPWG is interested in extends from roughly 1433–1804 (the birth of Marsilio Ficino until the death of Kant), being inclusive of key thinkers in the time leading up to what is traditionally considered ‘Early Modern’. The core research topics will involve investigations into how both canonical and non-canonical historical figures understand the metaphysics and physics of the world around them as well as how they think that we, as living beings, should and do navigate and psychologically experience this world and other agents within it. An important goal of this group will be to include research into traditionally-marginalized figures in the Early Modern period, including women and individuals not from western Europe. The interdisciplinary research that this group will conduct shall involve drawing together strengths in analytical analysis, literary theory, knowledge of political and religious history, knowledge of the history of astronomy, and – significantly – comparative studies between the East and West.

Epistemology Work-In-Progress Group (EWIP)

Graduate Student Working Group (GSWG)

Princeton-Michigan Normativity Workshop

Writing Accountability Group

Contact: Sophia Wushanley, Gabrielle Kerbel

The Writing Accountability Group provides a forum for philosophy PhD students to talk about their research goals and the work they are doing to achieve them. By setting deadlines with accountability partners and meeting monthly in-person to discuss progress, students create a social accountability network that encourages them to make a habit of continually producing work even when "real" deadlines are not imminent.

Affinity Groups

In contrast to departmental reading and working groups, Philosophy affinity groups are intended to fulfill a more social, networking, and supportive role in the department.

Poor People of Color in Philosophy (PPCP)

Contact: people-of-color-in-philosophy@umich.edu

This affinity group is meant to support the struggles of people of color who grew up poor or working-class and who've entered philosophy and are navigating elite academic spaces. The hope for this group is that it will serve as a refuge for folks, where they can share their experiences without fearing pushback and where we collectively develop strategies for navigating and responding to institutional racism, sexism, and elitism. It is also a space for celebrating our backgrounds, differences, and achievements.

Queer (Unrestricted) in Philosophy (QUIP)

Women and Gender Minorities in Philosophy (WAGM)

Contact: womenandgenderminorities@umich.edu

Women and Gender Minorities in Philosophy is a networking, mentoring, and support group open to all women and gender minorities among the Philosophy department grad students, faculty, and staff. As philosophy has been historically and is still a male-dominated profession, the purpose of the group is to provide a space where women and gender minorities can build a social network, foster mentoring relationships, and share advice on navigating academic philosophy as a woman or gender minority.

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