2025 Summer Program at the Center for Canon Expansion and Change

Associate Professor of Philosophy, U of M

Assistant Professor of Philosophy, U of M

Graduate Program Coordinator, U of M

Philosophy PhD Candidate, U of M

(UNAM - Mexico City)

My name is Julia Muñoz-Velasco, I'm from Mexico City. I currently teach early modern philosophy and Kant at UNAM (Mexico's National and Autonomous University). In my PhD dissertation I studied the notion of fallibility and error in Kant's theoretical philosophy. Recently I've been studying the work of women philosophers in early modern philosophy, and I've developed an special interest in Margaret Cavendish's natural philosophy.

(University of Lausanne, Walras-Pareto Centre)

Elena Muceni (Ph.D. University of Rome Tor Vergata and University of Geneva) is a specialist in the history of early modern philosophy. She has worked as a researcher at the University of Geneva, at the University of Paderborn (Germany) and the University of Milan. She has transcribed, translated and edited manuscripts by Émilie Du Châtelet, Laura Bassi and Louise Dupin. She has also devoted research to misogynist narratives and the problems engendered by the status of women in modern jurisprudence, such as infanticide and rape.

(Duke University)

I am a PhD student in the philosophy department at Duke University. My primary philosophical interests are in early modern metaphysics. In particular, I am interested in the work of Margaret Cavendish and her theory of order, infinitude, and part-whole relationships in the natural world. Outside of my research, I work on Project Vox, an open access site that provides resources for teachers and students on the philosophical works of individuals from marginalized groups.

(Susquehanna University)

Theresa Lopez is an assistant professor of philosophy at Susquehanna University, a liberal arts college in PA. Her primary research focuses on the psychology of moral judgment and its implications for philosophical questions about ethics and moral knowledge, with secondary research in bioethics on health care disparities. She teaches modern philosophy and political philosophy in addition to various courses in ethics, and has a particular interest in ethics pedagogy.

(University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee)

Miren Boehm is a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. While her research centers on Hume's metaphysics and epistemology, she has also written on John Locke, Issac Newton, and Claude Buffier, and Mary Shepherd's critique on Hume's account of causation. She is thrilled to learn more about women philosophers in the early modern period and throughout. Thank you for the great opportunity!

(Grinnell College)

Tammy Nyden is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Grinnell College, where she teaches early modern philosophy. She wrote Spinoza’s Radical Cartesian Mind, co-edited Cartesian Empiricisms, and published articles on both Spinoza and 17th century physics. Her current research includes an examination of philosophy pedagogy in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with particular interest in how and why characterizations of early modern philosophy change over time.

(Marquette University)

Dr. Ericka Tucker is an Associate Professor of Philosophy specializing in Early Modern and Social and Political Philosophy. Tucker has published on Spinoza, Hobbes, recognition, philosophy of emotion, democracy, community radio, and theories of power in feminist philosophy. Tucker is currently completing a monograph on Spinoza’s democracy theory. Tucker studied philosophy at Brown and Emory Universities and has taught at Emory University, the University of Helsinki, Cal Poly Pomona and Marquette University.

(University of Western Ontario)

Nicholas Michieli is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario with specialization in early modern philosophy. His dissertation focuses on the relationship Leibniz draws between force and perception, and his research on metaphysics has included the topics of matter and infinity. Recently, his teaching has broadly focused on early modern moral and political philosophy, and he aims to expand his research into these areas.

(Vanderbilt University)

I specialize in Early Modern Philosophy and Metaphysics, but I also find Philosophy of Religion, Political Philosophy, and Renaissance Philosophy to be terribly interesting. I am particularly interested in the philosopher Benedict/Baruch/Bento de Spinoza, his historical antecedents, and his bold metaphysical views. My first monograph, The Structure of Spinoza’s World (Oxford University Press, 2025), defends a structuralist reading of Spinoza’s metaphysics. I plan to analyze further implications of this view in forthcoming projects.

(University of Western Ontario)

I am an incoming Master's student in the Philosophy Department at the University of Western Ontario interested in furthering the scholarship on Margaret Cavendish. I am interested in her metaphysics, as they appear in The Grounds of Natural Philosophy; her socio-political works; and her plays. I also look forward to learning about ways to teach Cavendish, as well as other non-canonical figures, to unfamiliar audiences.

(Assumption University)

Margaret Matthews is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Assumption University. Her research specialization is in Renaissance and Early Modern Philosophy. Her interests include the relationship between skepticism and tolerance in the Essays of Montaigne, and the intersection of epistemology and feminism in the work of women philosophers such as Gabrielle Suchon, Marie de Gournay, and Lucrezia Marinella. Her current main project explores Suchon’s theory of knowledge and its implications for her views on equality.

(Grand Valley State University)

Areins Pelayo (She/They) is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State University. Before this, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2022. Her research interests are early modern philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and feminist epistemology. Please visit her website for what she's been up to.

(UC San Diego)

I work mostly on epistemology, religion, and race in early modern philosophy. I just finished my PhD at UC San Diego in March 2025 with a dissertation on Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise. In August 2025 I will begin at UW-Madison as a postdoc in partnership with the Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy Project.

(The University of Western Ontario)

Benjamin Hill (Western) received his PhD from Iowa in 2003. He has published articles and books on John Locke and other figures across 16th and 17th century philosophy. A staunch supporter of inclusive history of philosophy and ally to feminist, post-colonialist, and critical race scholars re-appraising analytic history of philosophy, he is excited to participate in the 2025 CCES Summer Program to learn more about inclusive pedagogy and supporting efforts to re-evaluate the philosophical canon.

(University of Rochester )

Tessa Brunnenmeyer is a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Rochester. Her research is focused on the work of Margaret Cavendish, with a specific interest in the epistemic value of the various literary devices Cavendish employs throughout her corpus. Tessa is also interested in feminist pedagogy and historical methodology, with an aim to approach research and teaching inclusively, critically, and with an open-mind.

(Claremont McKenna College)

I am Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. My work both (i) clarifies Early Modern philosophical approaches to mind and reality (especially David Hume’s and Immanuel Kant’s), and (ii) applies insights gained from doing so to debates in contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics. I love teaching in these areas, and look forward to guidance in further extending my curriculum to non-traditional figures of Early Modern philosophy.

(University of Western Ontario)

I am a fourth-year student at the University of Western Ontario, majoring in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, with an emphasis on politics and philosophy. My research interests encompass the history of political and economic philosophy during the early modern period. I enjoyed studying the history of women in early modern philosophy, and I’m eager to learn more about the ideas of figures who have been excluded from the philosophical canon.

(University of Groningen)

Visiting Researcher at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). I have a PhD on a linguistic reading of Descartes’ theory of perception (University of Edinburgh). My area of expertise is Early Modern Philosophy, with focus on Cartesianism, analogies in natural philosophy and theories of causation. I am currently writing about Cordemoy’s causal projectivism. I have taught new narratives in the History of Philosophy and I am interested in issues of methodology in the discipline.

(University of Minnesota Twin Cities. )

Leif Turner is a PhD student in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Currently, his work involves reevaluating the relation between Black American literature and the theoretical legacy of German idealism. He’s also interested in Marxian aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and the theory of the novel.

(University of California, Davis)

Originally hailing from Mexico City, Alejandro Naranjo Sandoval is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Davis. He specializes in Kant, Early Modern Philosophy (with an emphasis on Leibniz and Conway), and Social Ontology. His historical work centers around issues in the philosophy of mind (including the relation between the cognitive faculties) and metaphysics (including monism). Regarding social ontology, Alejandro's work aims to elucidate the nature of racial membership and its relation to notions of expertise, authority, and recognition. He has served as the President of the American Association for Mexican Philosophers and as the Chair of the Community Advancement Working Group at Davis.

(North Hennepein Community College & University of Minnesota - Twin Cities)

Áila O'Loughlin is a professor of philosophy at North Hennepin Community College as well as a candidate for their second PhD in Philosophy with a graduate minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies from the University of Minnesota. Aila works in Ethics and Social Philosophy, particularly on Indigenous Kinship Ethics as a major normative theory and how according to Indigenous Kinship Ethics, humans have direct moral obligations to non-humans, including so-called ‘natural objects’ and the environment.

(Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

Nastassja Pugliese is Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Education at the Faculty of Education of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is the coordinator of the UNESCO-UFRJ Chair for the History of Women in Philosophy, Sciences, and Culture. Pugliese holds a Young Women Scientists Grant by FAPERJ to study the recovery of Brazilian women philosophers from the 19th century, and has published on Spinoza, Anne Conway, and feminist pedagogies.

(University of Massachusetts Dartmouth)

I work in early modern metaphysics and epistemology, particularly theories of perception. My work focuses mostly on Berkeley, Locke, Shepherd, and Hume.