News & Events

Faculty News

Miriam Byrd smiling at the camera, wearing glasses, earrings, necklace, and a patterned blouse.

Dr. Miriam Byrd's Recent Activities

Dr. Miriam Byrd’s paper, “Hypotheses and Mathematical Intermediates in the Republic,” is forthcoming in Ancient Philosophy. In addition, Dr. Byrd presented “Plato’s Method of Hypothesis in the Meno and Phaedo” at the London Ancient Science Conference in April at University College, London and “Platonic Moral Philosophy in the Early Dialogues” at the 21st Annual Conference of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Dr. Byrd will become department chair in Fall 2024.

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Cares Grant received for an open-access textbook

Dr. Martin Gallagher received a Cares Grant from UTA Libraries for the creation of an open-access textbook for Classical Mythology. This project aims to better integrate material and visual resources to help students understand mythology in the Mediterranean perspective, which includes the influence of the cultures of the Ancient Near East (Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria and Palestine). In tandem with an experiential learning project, students will be equipped to understand the lived experience of Greek and Roman myth. He is a Senior Member of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens, which supports his access to material culture in Greece.

Group photo from the Clinical Experiential Workshop Simulation Lab, UTA SMART Hospital on May 23, 2024

Training completion offers more opportunities for students

Dr. Steven Gellman completed training for Simulation Lab, an exciting new resource offering opportunity for hands-on experiential learning for Medical Humanities students.

Luke Roelofs wearing a beret, glasses, colorful shirt, and a cross-body bag.

Dr. Luke Roelofs' New Publications

Dr. Luke Roelofs published “Simulation Trouble and Gender Trouble,” a paper on empathy and the boundaries of interpersonal understanding, in a special issue of the journal Philosophical Exploration. They also published a co-authored paper, “Overlapping Minds and the Hedonic Calculus,” with Jeff Sebo, director of NYU’s Mind Ethics and Policy Program. In addition, Dr. Roelofs presented two talks on varied forms of consciousness at the Pacific meeting of the American Philosophical Association. One, “Unconscious Consciousness Across Traditions”, was part of a panel on Asian and Comparative Philosophy; the other, “Does it matter if plants are conscious?”, was part of a panel on “The Borderlands of Consciousness”, and will also be presented this August at the World Congress of Philosophy in Rome.

Eli Shupe smiling while wearing a dress blouse, glasses, and a pearl necklace.

Dr. Eli Shupe's Recent Activities

Dr. Eli Shupe has two recent publications, “Understanding Organ Stewardship” in the Hastings Center Report and “The Irreconcilability of Insight” in Animal Cognition. She continues to serve as director of Make Philosophy, an open pedagogy project founded by Dr. Shupe in collaboration with Maker Literacies Librarian Morgan Chivers and the UTA FabLab in 2022. In Spring 2024, Dr. Shupe was awarded the CoLA Outstanding Research or Creative Activity Award. For more on Dr. Shupe’s activities, see news releases on Philosophy You Can Touch and Feel, Hands-on Learning, and At Patients’ Bedsides, Students Learn What Textbooks Can’t Teach.

Kenneth Williford in a button down shirt in front of a window

FDL Grant Recipient

Dr. Kenneth Williford received an FDL grant for 2024-2025 and will be on leave completing his monograph on Sartre’s philosophy.

Department News

Nine people standing and smiling in front of a projector screen that has a powerpoint that's titled "Disability Integration Service Learning with U T A and American Red Cross"

Medical Humanities Service Learning Project

Medical Humanities has teamed up with the American Red Cross! Students now have an opportunity to participate in Service Learning with the Red Cross through my SCIE 4303 and SCIE 4304 classes. In addition, students who have completed the requirements for the Minor in Medical Humanities and Bioethics may have the opportunity to participate in an Internship with the Red Cross.

Graphic with plain text that reads, "Coming soon"

New Stimulus Volume Coming Soon

Stimulus: A Medical Humanities Journal Volume 4 is nearly complete and should be available very soon.

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MMHSC Volunteering Activties

The Mavericks for Medical Humanities Student Club has been volunteering at the Brookdale Dementia Unit - this is a great opportunity to learn about Alzheimer's Disease and dementia.

A group of students and teachers standing around a fake patient in a hospital bed.

Experiential Immersion Experience Workshop

An Experiential Immersion Experience Workshop in the UTA Simulation Lab was held in May 2024. Inexperienced pre-med students were introduced to clinical medicine. Planning is now underway to continue this opportunity for Simulation Lab learning.

Peter Zuk wearing a suit and smiling

Welcome Dr. Peter Zuk

The Department of Philosophy and Humanities extends a warm welcome to Dr. Peter Zuk, who will be joining us this fall as Assistant Professor. Dr. Zuk received his PhD in philosophy from Rice University in 2019. Prior to joining UTA, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy and at the Harvard Center for Bioethics. His work investigates the relationship between conceptions of mind, value, and the human person in the history of philosophy in order to address contemporary questions about the nature of moral objectivity, well-being, meaningfulness, and their manifestations in debates about emerging technologies. He has conducted significant BRAIN Initiative-funded applied neuroethics work on brain-computer interfaces, especially closed-loop deep brain stimulation and brain-based visual prosthesis systems. Combining these theoretical and applied interests, he is currently examining the conceptual foundations of mental integrity, mental privacy, and other neurorights that have been proposed in response to the increasing sophistication of neurotechnological methods of decoding and modulating mental states.

Graphic with plain text that reads, "New Medical Humanities Course."

New Medical Humanities Course

This section of Topics in Humanities will be taught by Dr. Ogan Gurel, who completed his M.D. at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1996 and serves as Biohealth Innovation Specialist at UTA.

View the new course

Events

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Classics Club: First Meeting of Year

Beginning September 16th, the classics club will meet from 12:15-12:45 in 313 Carlisle Hall, the first and third Monday of each month.

Four columns of drawings, each has a tree and a couple Throughout the four images, we see the woman slowly transform into a tree while the man watches.

Stimulus Art Gallery

The Stimulus Art Gallery for the 4th volume of Stimulus: A Medical Humanities Journal will be held in the UC from August 30th to September 13th.

View the flyer
Ogan Gurel wearing a suit

Dr. Ogan Gurel Research Presentation

Dr. Ogan Gurel, and Adjunct Professor in Medical Humanities, will be presenting his current research on September 13 for the Psychology Department.

Learn more