Faculty & Contact | Bishop's University

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Faculty of the Philosophy Department:

Contact Information is found in the BU Directory

Dr. James Crooks

Full Professor

Born on Prince Edward Island, Jamie Crooks grew up in Ontario and New Brunswick. He studied music at Mount Allison University where he majored in piano and served as assistant conductor of the Mount Allison Choral Society. In graduate study at the University of Toronto, his area of specialization was German Philosophy. The subject of his doctoral dissertation was Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche. He is currently chair of the Bishop’s University Department of Philosophy.

Since coming to Bishop’s in 1990, Dr. Crooks has served the University in on a variety of fronts. He was the University’s Ombudsperson from 1991-94. He was a founder and original director of the interdisciplinary major in Classics, Philosophy and Religion (1995) and its eventual successor, the Liberal Arts Programme (1998). With musical partner Fannie Gaudette, he ran the Bishop’s University Singers for 15 years (1999-2014). With George Rideout and Fannie Gaudette, he developed a tradition of Musical Theatre in the Departments of Drama and Music culminating in the official launch of that programme in 2020. He served on two occasions as Chief Negotiator for the APBU (2002-07) and is currently President (2022). He served as the inaugural Dean of Arts and Science (2008-11) and as Interim Vice-Principal of the University (2013-14). He was co-director of the internal arm of the most recent Capital Campaign (2014). He was director of the Psychological Health and Well-Being Research Cluster (2017-19) under the auspices of which he helped launch the Graduate Certificate in Knowledge Mobilization. He directed the library renovation project culminating in the opening of the Library Learning Commons (2018). With colleague Bruce Gilbert, Dr. Crooks has organized and hosted seven conferences for the Philosophy Department over the past 20 years featuring speakers from Canada, the U.S., Europe and South America.

In 2018, Dr. Crooks published We Find Ourselves Put to the Test: A Reading of the Book of Job with McGill-Queens University Press. The book was nominated for the Quebec Writers Federation Mavis Gallant Prize in Non-Fiction.

He has recently completed two book-length manuscripts:

Le Matin Intime: Une Exploration Philosophique sous Forme de Journal – translation of Henry Bugbee’s The Inward Morning: A Philosophical Exploration in Journal Form with Lyne Charpentier.

An Architecture of Gratitude: On the Genius of Bach’s Mass in B-minor.

‘Recovering Kairos: Toward a Heideggerian Analysis of Procrastination’. In Procrastination, Health and Well-Being, eds. Timothy Pychyl and Fuschia Sirois, Elsevier Inc.

‘Grief and Homecoming in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy’. In Ideas Under Fire, eds. Jonathan Lavery, Louis Groarke and William Sweet, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

“’Praise the world to the Angel’: Heidegger, Schmitz and the Liturgy of the Thing”. In History, Singularity and Being: Essays in Honour of Kenneth L. Schmitz, eds. Michael Baur & Robert E. Wood, Catholic University of America Press.

“Inventing Socrates: Truth, Jest and Care in Plato’s Apology”. In Reexamining Socrates in the Apology, ed. John Russon, Northwestern University Press.

“Plato and the Future of Education”, Journal of Eastern Townships Studies 45.

“A Play of Differences: Remarks on Heidegger and the Greeks”, International Journal of the Classical Tradition.

“On Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black”. For Canada Reads: One Book to Connect Us, Lennoxville, Quebec

“The Temporality of Counterpoint: Notes on Heidegger and Bach”. For the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy – Annual Meeting, Bishop’s University.

“Wonder at Beginnings and Ends”. For CreativeMornings Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec

“Wiederholung Before and After the Turn”. For The Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Bishop’s University

“Citizen as Host: On a Theme from Emmanuel Levinas”. For The Bishop’s Forum, Bishop’s University

“Bach’s Mass in B Minor as Text: Notes from a Philosophy Class”. For Bishop’s University’s Departments of Music and Liberal Arts as preparation for a performance of the Mass in B Minor by the Bishop’s University Singers under the direction of Julien Proulx.

“Citizenship is a Lifelong Journey – Some Thoughts on Plato’s Republic”. For The Bishop’s Forum, Bishop’s University.

“Das recht Sangbare: Some Notes on Hegel’s Theory of Vocal Music”. For Hegel on the Romantic Arts, Bishop’s University.

“Recovering ‘Kairos’: Toward a Heideggerian Analysis of Procrastination”. For the 8^th Biennial Procrastination Research Conference, Bishop’s University.

“‘Singing as you teach it . . .’: Reflections on Music and Community”. For TEDx at Up for Debate, Bishop’s University

‘Heidegger, Humanisme et éthique’. For ACFAS, Université de Sherbrooke

‘Plato and the Future of Education.’ For First Wednesdays, Vermont Humanities Council, Stanstead, Quebec

Dr. Don Dombowsky

Full Professor

Don Dombowsky did his graduate study at the University of Ottawa and the New School for Social Research in New York. He has taught a wide range of courses for the Politics and International Studies, Philosophy and Liberal Arts programs on selected topics in the history and theory of politics, philosophy and art. He was nominated for the William & Nancy Turner Teaching Award in 2011 and received a Teaching Merit Award for his Classical Political Philosophy II course in 2012. In 2019 and in 2022, he was nominated for a Bishop’s Teaching Award.

Professor Dombowsky’s research is concerned primarily with the political thought of Friedrich Nietzsche for which he is internationally recognized. His work on Nietzsche has been called ‘pathbreaking’. He is the author of Nietzsche’s Machiavellian Politics (2004), co-editor of Political Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche: An Edited Anthology (2008) and author of Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (2014). He has also published articles in the Journal of Nietzsche Studies and Nietzsche Studien: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Nietzsche-Forschung as well as in other European, British and Canadian journals. In April of 2011 he was awarded a SSHRC Research Grant for his study of Nietzsche and Napoleon published as Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (University of Wales Press, 2014).

A Remark on Dr. Dombowsky’s Research
‘Several studies exist which deny the bifurcation of Nietzsche’s philosophical thinking from his politics, demonstrating an indelible link between the two. Others have also challenged the attempted synthesis between Nietzsche’s thinking and progressive ideas, a synthesis which in the end makes a mockery of both what Nietzsche argued for and those progressive ideas he scorned. We can offer here a brief… list of some of the most interesting approaches to Nietzsche as a highly political… thinker. These include Fredrick Appel’s Nietzsche Contra Democracy; William Altman’s Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: The Philosopher of the Second Reich; Malcolm Bull’s Anti-Nietzsche; Don Dombowsky’s Nietzsche’s Machiavellian Politics; Ishay Landa’s, The Overman in the Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture; the late Stanley Rosen’s Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra; Geoff Waite’s Nietzsche’s Corps/e: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Spectacular Techno-Culture of Everyday Life. These studies… have been truly transformational for how we read Nietzsche.’ – Harrison Fluss, from the Introduction to Domenico Losurdo, Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel: Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance Sheet (Brill, 2019).

Books

Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (University of Wales Press, 2014).

Co-editor, Political Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche: An Edited Anthology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Nietzsche’s Machiavellian Politics(Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Book Chapters

‘Les sources du Napoléon de Nietzsche’. In: Martine Béland (ed.). Lectures nietzschéennes. Sources et réceptions. (Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, coll. “Pensée allemande et européenne”, 2015), 163-199.

‘Aristocratic Radicalism as a Species of Bonapartism’. In: Manuel Knoll and Barry Stocker (eds.). Nietzsche as Political Philosopher (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2014), 195-209.

‘A Response to Alan D. Schrift’s “Nietzsche For Democracy?”’ (2002). Reprinted in: Tracy Strong (ed.). International Library of Essays in the History of Social and Political Thought – Friedrich Nietzsche. (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2009), 109-121.

‘Nietzsche as Bonapartist’. In: Herman W. Siemens and V. Roodt (eds.). Nietzsche,Power and Politics:Rethinking Nietzsche’s Legacy for Political Thought. (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 347-369.

Recent Journal Articles

‘Heidegger on Nietzsche’s Political Ontology and Technoscientific Animalism’, The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art 4, January 2026.

‘Nietzsche’s Dionysian Philosophy and the European New Right’. The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms. Volume 30. Number 4. May-June 2025.

‘Nietzsche’s Colonial Philosophy Readjusted: A Response to Domenico Losurdo’s Assessment in Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel’. Historical Materialism. Volume 32. Issue 4. 2024.

Dr. Bruce Gilbert

Full Professor

Just as philosophy began with wonder for Plato and Aristotle, so it began with wonder for me. The cliché is not wrong: Philosophy engages with the “Big Questions”. What is the nature of reality? Is a truly fulfilling life possible for human beings? What is the origin and character of our responsibility to each other and for nature? Does our rigorous thought point to the necessity of something worthy of the name “God”? These are the main “big questions” that engage me.

I didn’t start off in philosophy though. I did a B.A. in History at the University of Toronto, then went to seminary at the Center for Christian Studies in Toronto followed by an M.A. at McGill in Religious Studies. After a brief foray in the education at Dalhousie, I finally admitted my calling as a philosopher and completed a PhD in Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University. Since then I’ve worked on a variety of topics. My 2014 book, The Vitality of Contradiction, won the Biennial Book Prize of the Canadian Philosophical Association. In addition to traditional philosophical work, I also research several important social movements in Brazil. My position at Bishop’s is in both Philosophy and Liberal Arts.

I find university teaching to be an extraordinarily rewarding and fulfilling career, and believe that the small classes and warm atmosphere of Bishop’s is ideal not just for students but for me as a professor as well.

In recent years my research pertains to the intersection of metaphysics and ethics. The main point of reference here is the debate about Plato’s argument for the “Good”—an eternal “form” that makes demands upon us to seek the Truth and be responsible to others. This means that the main philosophers I find myself working hardest on are Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, G. W. F. Hegel, Simone Weil, and Emmanuel Levinas. I have also devoted a great deal of energy in recent years to the (closely related) study of the philosophy of science.

My research in Brazil, meanwhile, focusses on the struggle for social justice for social movements, Afro-Brazilian communities and Indigenous peoples. This involves me in work not only on human rights, but also the rights of nature. To that end, I am an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the Federal University of Goiá𝑠, in central Brazil.

The Vitality of Contradiction: Hegel, Politics and Liberal-Capitalism, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014.

“Marxism and Human Rights: History, Exploitation and the Labour-Capital Compromise”. Revista Da Faculdade De Direito Da Universidade Federal de Goias, 2021, 44(3).

“Education for Democracy: Philosophical Reflections Inspired by Brazil’s Movement of Landless Rural Workers”, in John Russon, Siby George and P. G. Jung, Editors, Teaching in Unequal Societies. New Delhi: Bloomsbury India, 2020.

“Luta Histórica, Razão, e os Direitos de Natureza”, in Danielle de Ouro Mamed, Jairo Marchesan and Sandro Luiz Bazzanella, Editors, Natureza em Desenvolvimento:

Questões para uma sociedade sustentável. São Paulo: Editora LibArs, 2020.

“Socio-environmental rights and the riddle of history”. Revista Da Faculdade De Direito Da Universidade Federal de Goias, 2018, 42(1), 145–158.

“Hegel and the Imperatives of Love”, Symposium, Volume 21, No. 1, Spring 2017, pp. 18-37.

“Direitos Coletivos, Meios de Produção e Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais no Brasil”, Insurgência, July-December, 2015, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 41-63.

“Socialist Values” and Cooperation in Brazil’s Movement of Landless Rural Workers”, with Aldiva Sales Diniz, Latin American Perspectives, July 2013; vol. 40, 4: pp. 19-34.

Recent Conference Presentations, Public Lectures, Invited Talks

“Sketch of a Phenomenological Plato”, Annual Philosophy Department Lecture, University of Maine, March 30, 2022.

“R. G. Collingwood’s Speculum Mentis”. Guest lecturer in Capstone Seminar, University of Maine, March 30, 2022.

“Karl Marx’s Theory of Exploitation”. Guest Lecture in Philosophy Seminar, University of Maine, March 31, 2022.

“Occupation and Cooperation: Strategies for Socialism in Brazil’s Landless Worker’s Movement” Socialist and Marxist Speakers Series Talk, University of Maine, March 31, 2022.

“The ‘Institution’ of the Good in Levinas”, Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, October, 15, 202. Also presented at the “Transcendence and Ethics” Conference on Emmanuel Levinas, Bishop’s University, November 26, 2022.

“The ‘Different Freedom’ of Infinite Responsibility”, Annual Conference of the North American Levinas Society, July 28, 2021.

“Vulnerability and the Good that Loves Me”, North American Levinas Society annual conference, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, July 24, 2019. A revised version of this paper, under the title “Levinas and the Good”, was also presented at the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy, Bishop’s University, September 27, 2019.

Public Interview with Charles Taylor, Donald Lecture Series, Centennial Theatre, Bishop’s University, September 26, 2019.

“Education for Democracy: Philosophical Reflections Inspired by Brazil’s Movement of Landless Rural Workers”, at the conference, “The Ethics of Teaching in Pluralistic and Unequal Societies”, 22-24 November 2018, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT Bombay Ground Floor Conference Hall, Jalvihar Guest House, India.

“Os direitos da natureza: um argumento filosófico para a autodeterminação da natureza” (“The Rights of Nature: A Philosophical Argument for the Self-Determination of Nature”), Rede Latinamericano de Antropología Juridíca”, Temuco, Chile, 11-13, October, 2018.

“Academic of Freedom and the Calling of ‘Good Speech’”, Academic Freedom and Society Conference, University of Warwick, Great Britain, June 2, 2017.

“Contradição Necessária no Campo de Direitos Humanos”, VII Congresso de Direito Socio-Ambiental, Pontifícia Universidade Católica, Parana, Brazil, May, 10, 2017.

“A Natureza Pode ter Direitos?” at the Conference, Reforma Agraria, Educação do Campo e Criminalização dos Movimentos Sociais, Universidade Federal do Parana, Curitiba, Brazil, 19 April, 2017.

Jean Klucinskas

Contract Faculty

Jean Klucinskas received a Bachelors in Fine Arts (B.F.A) from Concordia University, and an M.A. in Philosophy, from Université de Montréal; writing on Hegel’s Philosophy of Art. He subsequently entered the PhD. Program in Comparative Literature at the Université de Montréal. His doctoral thesis is on the Discourses of Artistic Production in France, Germany and England during the Eighteenth Century.

He teaches a variety of courses on the history of ideas and on philosophies of art. He also teaches in Art History and in the Liberal Arts program. His research interests are in the areas of Aesthetics and the early modern conception of Art emerging during the European Enlightenment. He is also interested in thinking about the impact of «images» on contemporary culture especially through philosophical reflections on cinema.

The Philosophy of Art and Art Criticism.
Art theories in early Modernity: French, German and English (1660-1820).
The Philosophy of the Enlightenment and XVIIIe Century Europe.
Theories of the Image and Visual culture.

Books (co-edited)

Transmédiations, traversées culturelles de la modernité tardive, Mélanges offerts à Walter Moser, Eds. Jean-François Vallée, Jean Klucinskas et Gilles Dupuis, Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2012. 324 p.

Esthétique et recyclage culturel, exploration de la culture contemporaine, Eds. Jean Klucinskas et Walter Moser, Ottawa: Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2004.

Articles

«Préface préposthume: Un homme aux qualités transversales», 5-22, Jean-François Vallée & Jean Klucinskas, in Transmédiations, traversées culturelles de la modernité tardive, Mélanges offerts à Walter Moser, Sous la direction de Jean-François Vallée, Jean Klucinskas et Gilles Dupuis, Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2012. 324p.

«Le corps immaculé : l’image d’Antinoüs chez Hogarth et Diderot », 319-337, dans Le corps romanesque ; images et usages topiques sous l’Ancien Régime. Presses universitaires de Laval, (Québec). Sous la direction de Monique Moser-Verrey, Lucie Desjardins et Chantal Turbide, 2009. (Second printing: Éd. Hermann, Paris: 2015)

«Introduction», Jean Klucinskas & Walter Moser, 1-27, Esthétique et recyclage culturel, exploration de la culture contemporaine, dir. Jean Klucinskas et Walter Moser, Ottawa: Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2004. (Trans. «A estética à prova da reciclagem cultural» 17- 42, Literatura Scripta : Revista do Centro de Estudos Luso-afro-brasileiros da PUC Minas: Brasil, Vol. 11, No. 20, 2007)

«La dramatisation et l’intensité de la répétition» 151-160, dans Esthétique et recyclage culturel, exploration de la culture contemporaine, dir. Jean Klucinskas et Walter Moser, Ottawa : Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2004.

«On Jay David Bolter and the Concept of Remediation», Web Review / Compte rendu de la Scéance «Remediation / Mise en Abîme» in Archée: Cybermensuel, November 2003. (http://archee.qc.ca/ar.php?page=imp&no=216)

«L’émulation : le style de l’Autre», Sur ma manière de travailler : Actes du colloque Art et Psychanalyse II, Sous la direction de Hervé Bouchereau et Chantal Pontbriand, Montréal: Éd. Parachute, 2001.