Curriculum Vitae Robert Samuel Leib, PhD. Online CV: Academia:

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1 Curriculum Vitae Robert Samuel Leib, PhD Department of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University 777 Glades Road SO 283 Boca Raton, FL Online CV: Academia: AOS: 19 th & 20 th C. Continental Philosophy, Social & Political Philosophy, Phenomenology AOC: Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Law Education o Ph.D., Philosophy, Villanova University, December 2016 ( ) Dissertation: Political Myth: An Archaeology of Magical Language This dissertation explores the intersection of language, subject formation, and political formation in the German and French philosophical traditions. Using a Foucaultian archaeological framework, I seek to demonstrate the ways in which philosophers of otherwise diverse interests resonate with one another through their common concern to shore up the philosophical against the irrational, the historical against the fictional, the demos against the xenos, and ultimately, the real against the magical. The common locus of these struggles is what Cassirer, Nancy, and Bottici call political myth that narrative in light of which a community both produces and sustains itself as this community. I argue that myth is an element of social, political, and academic discourse that plays an important role in work of many philosophers including Plato, Herder, Kant, Goethe, Schelling, Heidegger, and Agamben, among others though it is not always named as such. Drawing strongly upon Cassirer s theory of magical language, I develop an archaeological account that places political myth squarely at the forefront of modern social and political formation, arguing for mythation as a fundamental practice of shared language and culture, one that must be pursued self-consciously even today if a community is to remain self-responsible. o M.A., Philosophy, Villanova University, May 2013 ( ) o M.A., Philosophy, Kent State University, May 2009 ( ) Thesis: Being in Place: On Unity and Body in Aristotle o M.A., Liberal Arts, St. John s College, Annapolis, MD, May 2007 ( ) o B.A., Philosophy, Summa Cum Laude with Honors, Mount St. Mary s University, Emmitsburg, MD, May 2005 ( ) Thesis: A Defense of John Hick s Pluralism: As articulated in Kant and Exemplified by Gandhi cv_leib_1 of 5

2 Fellowships, Grants, and Awards o Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Workshop/Symposium Grant for 2017 philosophia Annual Conference, Florida Atlantic University (Spring 2017) o Best Submission by a Graduate Student, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), Salt Lake City, UT (Fall 2016) o Professional Development Grant, Villanova University (Summer 2016) o Participant Fellowship, Philosophy Without Teachers Residency, Elon University, Greensboro, NC (Summer 2016) o J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellowship, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Washington, D.C. (Spring 2016) o Participant Fellowship, Atelier de Théorie Critique, Paris (Summer 2015) o Graduate Summer Research Fellowship Award, VU (Summer 2014) o Participant Fellowship, Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Citta di Castello, Italy (Summer 2013) o Teaching Assistantship, VU ( ) o Teaching Assistantship, Kent State University ( ) o Delta Epsilon Sigma, National Scholastic Catholic Honors Society (2005) o The Nona S. and Jerome V. Redmond Prize for distinguished study of Philosophy, Mount St. Mary s University (2005) o The Erskine-Felber-Leonhardt Prize for distinguished study of the German language, MSMU (2005) o The Dr. Henry P. and M. Page Laughlin Prize for outstanding scholarship and academic leadership, MSMU (2004) o The Monsignor Hugh J. Phillips Prize for highest GPA, MSMU (2002) o The Kuderer Trustee Full Tuition Scholarship, MSMU ( ) Publications o Without Provenance: Doing Ethics in the USHMM s Photo Archives, (in preparation) o The Nazi War on Language, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (in preparation) o Myth, Primitive Sign, Poetry: From Cassirer to Heidegger, Research in Phenomenology (under review) o Myth and Language: The First and Foundational Symbolic Forms, chapter in Interpreting Cassirer (Cambridge UP) (under review) o Homo Sacer, Homo Magus, and the Ethics of Philosophical Archaeology, Journal of Speculative Philosophy 31:3 (Summer 2017) o Spinoza s Theological-Political Treatise and Lessing s Fragmentenstreit, History of Political Thought 38:4 (Winter 2017) o Spaces of the Self: Foucault and Goffman on the Micro-Physics of Discipline, Philosophy Today 61:1 (Winter 2017) cv_leib_2 of 5

3 Teaching Experience o Philosophy of Images, Florida Atlantic University (Spring 2018) o Philosophy of Law, FAU (Fall 2017) o Philosophy of Religion, FAU (Fall 2017) o Phenomenology, FAU (Spring 2017) o Philosophy of Emotion, FAU (Fall 2016) o Intro to Philosophy, FAU (Fall , 8 sections; Spring 2017, 12 sections) o Applied Ethics, Crigler Institute, Ursinus College (Summer 2016) o Formal Logic, Villanova University (Fall 2013, 2015, 2 sections) o Ethics & Leadership, Peirce College (Spring 2015, Fall 2015 online) o Knowledge Reality Self, VU (Fall , 2015, Spring ) Presentations o The Dangers of Political Myth: Past and Present. Inaugural Lecture, Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Colloquium Series, Florida Atlantic University, November 3, 2016 o Homo Sacer, Homo Magus, and the Ethics of Philosophical Archaeology. Society for Phenomenology of Existential Philosophy (SPEP), Salt Lake City, UT, October 20-22, 2016 o Führer and Witness: Two figures of Myth-making. Given as Junior Lecturer, Summer School in Philosophy and Society, Antwerp University, Belgium, August 30, 2016 o Learning to See: Cellphone Photography and Citizenship. Philosophy Without o Teachers Residency, Elon University, Greensboro, NC, June 6, 2016 The Nazi War on Language. The Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2016 o Myth, Primitive Sign, Poetry: From Cassirer to Heidegger. Heidegger Circle, Atlanta, Georgia, October 8, 2015 o Political Myth and Its Interruption. Conference in Metaphilosophy, Eötvös József Collegium, Budapest, Hungary, February 13-15, 2015 o Human and Animal Language in Hegel and Herder. International Association for Environmental Philosophy (IAEP), Eugene, OR, October 26-28, 2013 o Heidegger and Cassirer on Magical Signs and Primitive Language. Participants Conference, Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Citta di Castello, Italy, July 6-7, 2013 o Spaces of the Self: Foucault and Goffman on the Micro-physics of Discipline. Rethinking Prisons, Vanderbilt University, May 3, 2013 o Tragedy of Tragedies: The Gods as Tragic Heroes in Hegel s Phenomenology of Spirit. SPEP, Philadelphia, PA, October 20, 2011 o Agamben on the Unnecessary Violence of Language. Comparative Literature Graduate Conference, SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, April 15, 2011 cv_leib_3 of 5

4 Workshops o Political Myth, Propaganda, and the Politics of Imagination, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium, August 22-30, 2016 o Philosophy Without Teachers: Askesis, Elon University, June, o Atelier de Théorie Critique, Sorbonne, Paris, France, July 6-24, 2015 o Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Citta di Castello, Italy, July 8-26, 2013 Service to the Profession o Webmaster, philosophia (2017-) o Co-Host & Organizer, philosophia: Society for Continental Feminism, 11 th Annual Conference, Affect & Social Justice - March 30-April 2, 2017 o Program Committee, philosophia ( ) o Writing Across the Curriculum, university-wide assessment, FAU ( ) o Graduate Faculty Liaison, VU (2012) o Conference Organizer, 17 th Annual Philosophy Conference, "Critical Theories" - March 30-31, 2012, VU o Co-Chair, Philosophy Graduate Student Union, VU ( ) o Senator, Graduate Student Senate, KSU ( ) o Student Rep., Middle States steering committee, MSMU ( ) Research Languages o English, native speaker o German, competency; 15 credits from Mount St. Mary s University ( ), passed translation exam, Villanova University (Spring 2013) o French, moderate reading; passed translation exam, Villanova University (Spring 2014) o Classical Greek, moderate reading (KSU and VU, ) References o Dr. Walter A. Brogan, Dissertation Advisor Professor of Philosophy, Villanova University (610) / walter.brogan@villanova.edu o Dr. Michael Harris, Acting Chair of Philosophy Associate Professor of Anthropology, Florida Atlantic University (561) / mharris@fau.edu o Dr. James Wetzel Professor of Philosophy, Villanova University Associate Director of the Augustinian Institute (610) / james.wetzel@villanova.edu o Dr. Georg Theiner Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Villanova University (610) / georg.theiner@villanova.edu cv_leib_4 of 5

5 Dissertation Abstract: This work explores the intersection of language, subject formation, and political formation in the German and French philosophical traditions, with an eye toward the political present. In the first chapter, I begin by exploring the ways in which philosophers of otherwise diverse interests resonate with one another through their common concern to shore up the utopian against the heteroclite, the historical against the fictional, the demos against the xenos, and ultimately, the real against the magical. This work both investigates and sees itself as undertaking a philosophical archaeology, that method of inquiry first articulated by Kant, but brought into a workable formulation by Michel Foucault in The Order of Things. My project is founded upon the limits reached by Foucault in the conclusion of this work, and it is structured by what Foucault identifies there as three dimensions of blindness for the positivistic human sciences psychoanalysis, ethnology, and a pure theory of language. He describes the last as the origin at which psychoanalysis and ethnology cross. In the second chapter, I examine Giorgio Agamben s Homo Sacer project as an instance of a philosophical archaeology pursued in the spirit of the psychoanalytic axis. I argue that the horrifying conclusion Agamben s history of homo sacer reaches (i.e. Muselmann), is a result of lacuna Agamben places at the heart of both language and political subjectivity. I show that Agamben s conclusions in Homo Sacer are necessary only if we fail to recognize his project as half of a larger archaeological project in which the psychoanalytic and ethnological cross. Ethnology, Foucault argues, has traditionally been the practice of producing a line between us and them, which results in rationalizing the inside and mystifying the outside. As Mauss writes in A General Theory of Magic: When two cultures come into contact, magic is usually attributed to the lesser developed. The figure produced in gazing at the magical from the position of Reason is homo magus, and I argue this forgotten figure is constitutive of the community. In the third chapter, I argue that homo magus turns out to be the figure who, throughout history, has been produced consistently as threat to knowledge, order, and piety. Unlike Agamben s homo sacer, who can survive the loss of it speech (i.e. the Muselmann), homo magus is one whose language is inseparable from its being; she is blasphemous and like Plato s poet, ceaselessly babbles at the gates. This threat bears an interesting structure: one the one hand, the magician s words are feared because they are powerful, but on the other, she is the essential liar (so it should not matter what she says). To hold both at once reveals the long-feared power of the curse in Western thought. But, a new examination of such magical speech brings us new possibilities: homo magus might be one who cannot speak Truth, but must nonetheless be consulted for the sake of the community. In the fourth chapter, I argue that larger social effects of magical language are what Cassirer, Nancy, and Bottici all call political myth that act of narrative in light of which a community both produces and sustains itself as this community. Drawing upon these thinkers, I develop a framework for confronting a political landscape increasingly characterized by the rise of non-veridical, magical speech. In conclusion, I give a reading of Foucault s pure theory of language that argues for mythation as a fundamental practice of shared language and culture, one that must be pursued self-consciously today, one that consults its own outside, if our communities are to remain self-responsible. cv_leib_5 of 5