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Philosophy Department




Arts and Sciences






To learn more about Professor Wood, read his interviews, Moments of Intense Presence (pdf 2008) and Thinking Against the Grain (2000).

David Wood

Centennial Professor of Philosophy
Joe B. Wyatt Distinguished Professor of Philosophy

Contact Information

Email: david.c.wood@vanderbilt.edu
Office: 111 Furman Hall
Phone: 615-343-7189
Fax: (615) 343-7259

Degrees

Ph.D. University of Warwick

Research Area

Dr. Wood's interests lie in the possibilities of reading and thinking opened up by contemporary continental philosophy and by nineteenth century German thought. Current philosophical projects include: reworking/displacing Heidegger's treatment of time within fundamental ontology; developing a nonprescriptive posthumanistic approach to ethics; providing an account of truth that does justice both to its normative, 'existential' and metaphysical dimensions; various different approaches to the philosophy of nature (environmental philosophy, animals rights, thinking boundaries etc.).

He also runs a series of philosophy talks at the Nashville Downtown Public Library. For details of the program, see Thinking out of the Box. He is also an environmental artist and stages Art Events from time to time. See the Chronopod Cycle at www.vanderbilt.edu/chronopod , and his MNAC Artist Registry website. . For interviews relating to these and other matters, check out the following additional interviews: Food for the Imagination, Contretemps Interview.

Charles Scott and David Wood discuss Thinking After Heidegger , Vanderbilt Philosophy Colloquium, September 24 2004:
      Charles Scott's comments
      David Wood's response

Current Research

Books in Progress:

  • Thinking Art: The Philosophical Significance of Seven Artists
  • Econstruction: The Implausible Convergence of Environmentalism and Deconstruction
  • Fatal Projections (in preparation)
  • Things at the Edge of the World (in preparation)
  • Trees and Truth: Towards a Philosophy of Nature
  • A Conversation Between Neighbors: Emmanuel Levinas and Søren Kierkegaard in Dialogue, co-edited with J. Aaron Simmons (in preparation for Indiana)

Selected Recent Publications

  • Moments of Intense Presence: A Conversation with David Wood (Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, 2008)
  • Time After Time (Indiana University Press, 2007)
  • The Step Back: Ethics and Politics after Deconstruction (SUNY Press, 2005) Read the Introduction.
  • Truth: A Reader (ed. with José Medina) (Blackwell, 2005)
  • Thinking After Heidegger (Polity Press, June 2002)
  • The Deconstruction of Time (second edition, Northwestern, 2001)
  • On Derrida, Heidegger and Spirit (ed. and intro.) (Northwestern, 1993)
  • Derrida: A Critical Reader (ed. and intro.) (Blackwell, 1992)
  • "Some Questions for My Levinasian Friends" in Addressing Levinas, ed. E. Nelson et. al. (Northwestern, 2002)
  • "What is Ecophenomenology?" Research in Phenomenology, Vol. XXXI, 2001.
  • "Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis: Embodying Transformation" for Interrogating Ethics, edited Jim Hatley and Chris Diem, (Northwestern, 2001)
  • "Comment ne pas manger: Deconstruction and Humanism" in Animal Others, ed. Peter Steeves (SUNY, 1999)
  • "Kierkegaard, God and the Economy of Thinking", in Jonathan Ree (ed.) A Kierkegaard Reader, Blackwell, 1997
  • Philosophy: The Antioxidant of Higher Education

 

Click here for all Recent Publications (after 1990)

Teaching

Spring 2010

  • Phil 115 Environmental Art
  • Phil 260 Twentieth Century Continental

  • Fall 2009

    • Phil 353 Heidegger's Being and Time

    • Spring 2009

      • Phil 260 Twentieth Century Continental: The Other (and Film)
      • Phil 182 Environmental Philosophy (Honors Seminar)

      • Spring 2008

        • Phil 260 Twentieth Century Continental: Possibilities and Pathologies of Alterity


        Fall 2007

        • Phil 352 Values and the Environment: Theoretical Perspectives and Transformational Practice
        • Phil 353 Heidegger's Being and Time
          (Details can be found on OAK)

        Spring 2007

        • Phil 115 Environmental Philosophy
        • Phil 260 20th C Continental Philosophy

        Fall 2006

        • Phil 353 Later Heidegger: Poetry, Language, Technology
        • Phil 247 Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
          

        Selection of other recently taught classes: 

        • Phil 326 (2005) Heidegger's Being and Time
        • Phil 247 (2005) Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
        • Phil 260 (2004) 20th C Continental Philosophy: The Question of the Other
        • Phil 330 (2004) Derrida
        • Phil 260 (2004) 20th C Continental Philosophy: Freedom
        • Phil 327 (2004) Heidegger After Being and Time
        • Phil 115 (2003) Environmental Philosophy
        • Phil 326 (2002) Heidegger Being and Time
        • Phil 329 (2002) Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus
        • Phil 260 (2002) 20th C Continental Philosophy: Time and the Event
        • Phil 260 (2000) The Question of the Other
        • Phil 260 (1999) Memory: From History to Hysteria