Faculty Areas of Research

Many of our faculty are interested in issues connected to the intersection between social justice, art, medical ethics, race, gender, and identity, both across and within cultures and traditions.

Dr. Stephanie Rivera Berruz focuses on the Caribbean, Latina, and Latinx/Latin American philosophies with close attention to the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality. Read about her work on her Academia profile page.

Dr. Grant Silva specializes in Latin American philosophy, political philosophy, and the philosophy of race and ethnicity. Read more about his research on his Academia profile page.

Emeritus Dr. Curtis L. Carter works on the Philosophy of Art (Aesthetics) with a particular focus on Chinese/Western art and aesthetics, Hegel's Aesthetics, Aesthetics of the City, and Philosophy of Dance. Read more of his work.  

Dr. Javiera Perez Gomez works in applied ethics and bioethics. Much of her current work focuses on analyzing policies and practices that seem to compound the disadvantages that members of marginalized groups already face. Read her latest article on Fiduciary Duties Beyond Reproductive Care.

Dr. Desiree Valentine’s research lies at the intersection of ethics, critical philosophy of race, feminist philosophy, bioethics, and philosophy of disability. Read her most recent article.

Dr. Theresa Tobin works on topics in ethics and feminist philosophy with special focus on moral justification, moral and political emotions, and spiritual violence. Her current projects include a co-authored book with Dr. Alison Jaggar on moral justification in an unjust world, and an interdisciplinary collaboration with sociologist, Dr. Dawne Moon, studying spiritual violence perpetrated against LGBTQ Christians. Read some of her work on spiritual violence.

Many of our faculty specialize in philosophical traditions spanning Ancient Greece, Medieval Europe and the Middle East, to early modern and 19th century Europe, America, and Africa.

Ancient and Medieval Traditions

Dr. Richard C. Taylor is an expert on Medieval Philosophy in the Abrahamic Traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and Ancient Philosophy and Later Greek Philosophy and their influence. You can read more here about his work on Islamic Philosophy and also through the Raynor Memorial Libraries. Dr. Owen Goldin has published extensively in Ancient Philosophy. You can read some of his work through e-Publications Marquette. Dr. David Twetten works on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and Greek, Latin, and Arabic Thought, focusing especially on Aquinas, Albert the Great, Averroes, on the topics of metaphysics, cosmology, philosophical theology, philosophy of language, causality, and free will. Read his definition of theism here. Dr. James B. South works on late medieval and renaissance philosophy, aesthetics (especially popular culture), ordinary language philosophy, and the intersection of philosophy of mind and ethics with psychoanalytic thought. He is currently working on a monograph seeking to show certain inadequacies in virtue theory as it is currently theorized. Learn about his recent book on Westworld and philosophy at Wiley Publications.

Early Modern and Enlightenment Philosophy

Dr. Ericka Tucker specializes in Early Modern philosophy and contemporary Social and Political philosophy. In Early Modern philosophy, she works on Spinoza and Hobbes. In contemporary philosophy, she explores the prehistory of important concepts such as recognition, relation autonomy and social selves. She is currently working on a book on Spinoza's democratic theory. Learn more about her research on her profile page and read her recent article discussing Spinoza’s views on political emotion in the Trump era at Hope, Hate and Indignation: Spinoza on Political Emotion in the Trump Era.  Dr. Daniel Collette also works in early modern philosophy, with a current focus on early modern metaphysics and skepticism. He specializes in the philosophy of Blaise Pascal, and also publishes on Descartes, Hobbes, and Jacqueline Pascal. Dr. Mike Olson researches philosophical and scientific studies of human nature in the Enlightenment, including how the empirical studies of early modern biology and chemistry, for example, variously buttressed and contested philosophical ideas about our nature as moral, political, and epistemic actors. 

Dr. Javier A. Ibanez-Noe also works on German philosophy, with a concentration on Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.

Two members of the department are experts on the philosophical study of mind, consciousness, and scientific concepts. 

Dr. Anthony Peressini works in philosophy of mind and consciousness, science, mathematics, and he is also a researcher in psychology. His is especially interested in the relationship between science, scientific results and philosophical theorizing. Learn more about his work.

Dr. Corinne Bloch-Mullins’s research interest is the study of concepts–the mental categories with which we carve up the world, and which enable us to integrate our experiences and generalize from them. She studies the formation, development, and application of both folk and scientific concepts, and the role that scientific concepts play in investigative practice. Read more about her work.

Dr. Bloch-Mullins is also director of the Cognitive Science Program. The Cognitive Science Program brings together faculty from seven departments across campus to provide students with foundational knowledge and skills for an interdisciplinary inquiry into cognition. The layered and flexible curriculum assures that students get both a broad exposure to a wide breadth of topics and the opportunity to dive deeper into a specific area of interest. Personalized advising helps students choose courses that would cohere with their specific interests and any additional programs of study at Marquette. On their senior year, students participate in a capstone seminar in which they are challenged to draw on—and integrate—tools from the various courses they had taken in order to tackle “big problems” in cognitive science.

The Cognitive Science major provides students with a multidisciplinary skill set for a growing job market in a high-tech economy. Career possibilities include: computer-human interactions, information processing, product design, communication, education, and more. It also offers students a pathway to diverse graduate training opportunities in disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, data science, speech pathology, linguistics, anthropology, law, medicine, and more.

Read more about the program in this write-up in Discover Magazine.

In addition, the department contributes to Neuroscience PhD Program. Neuroscience is the study of the structure and function of the brain and nervous system and is currently one of the fastest growing areas in science education and research. There is an incredible demand for professionals with a neuroscience background across a wide spectrum of professions, ranging from medicine and research to business and law. The neuroscience PhD program is designed with interdisciplinary research training and curriculum to prepare students for doctoral level interdisciplinary career opportunities in the growing arena of neuroscience research and industry.