Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s Department of Philosophy and Religion is hosting the Mississippi Philosophical Association’s annual conference Saturday-Sunday [Feb. 9-10] at The Mill at MSU in Starkville.

Free and open to the public, this year’s event features two keynote speakers—Paul C. Taylor, the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, and Michael Kremer, the Mary R. Morton Professor of Philosophy and Department of Philosophy chair at the University of Chicago.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, Taylor will discuss “The Influence of Dewey on Race Theory (and Other Ways to Do Things with History).” On Sunday, Kremer will give a 4 p.m. presentation titled “‘Animals, Infants and Idiots’: The Exclusion of Intellectual Disability in Gilbert Ryle’s Philosophy of Mind.”

John Bickle, professor and head of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Philosophy and Religion, said MSU has hosted the MPA conference seven of the last 10 years. This year’s program chair is Kristin Boyce, an MSU assistant professor of philosophy and Judy and Bobby Shackouls Honors College Faculty Fellow who recently was named MSU’s 2018 Humanities Teacher of the Year.

“Themed conferences with nationally and internationally famous keynote speakers have enabled the MPA to succeed, and this year’s meeting will be no exception,” Bickle said. “Dr. Kristin Boyce, whose own research in aesthetics of the performing arts is attracting much attention, has put together an exceptional program.”

“It will be a great opportunity to not only show off MSU’s huge steps forward in philosophy over the past decade, but also our world-class facilities like The Mill,” Bickle added.

Administered by the University of Mississippi, the Mississippi Philosophical Association works to increase the understanding and appreciation of philosophy, encourage research and advance the standards and ideals of the teaching of philosophy, and cultivate an interest in the study of philosophy in Mississippi institutions of higher learning.

For more conference information, contact Boyce at 662-325-2382 or kboyce@honors.msstate.edu.

MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences includes more than 5,300 students, 300 full-time faculty members, nine doctoral programs and 25 academic majors offered in 14 departments. Complete details about the College of Arts and Sciences or the philosophy and religion department may be found at www.cas.msstate.edu or www.philosophyandreligion.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.