Our Faculty

I am an Assistant Teaching Professor cross-appointed to the Department of Philosophy, History and Politics and the Department of Literatures, Languages, and Performing Arts. My research and teaching stem primarily from the traditions of critique (especially German idealism and Hegel) in nineteenth and twentieth-century continental philosophy.

My current work addresses questions of marginalization and domination within modern society. My book, The Problem of Nature in Hegel's Final System (2018), explores these problems in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and critically evaluates the status of nature, mental illness, crime and the institution of punishment in his conception of modern social life. I have also published on the significance of Hegel's political philosophy for the Frankfurt school of critical theory. Prioritizing an interdisciplinary approach, I teach in a variety of contexts: explorations of nineteenth-century philosophy, critical theory, existentialism; critiques of social contract theory (Goldman, Fanon, Tuck and Yang); analyses of morality, ideology, and the unconscious (Nietzsche, Marx, Freud); examinations of race and gender in the history of literature (David Walker, William Apess, Mary Wollstonecraft).

My research also draws from early German romanticism (and critical theory) to conceptualize art as an expression of alternative (liberating) human possibilities. I have published on Friedrich Schiller's concept of the emancipatory quality of art. I also teach courses that explore the interconnections of philosophy, social theory and literature in the history of utopianism: visions of progressive (and/or regressive) social change from the early modern period to the 21st-century.

Dr. Jeff McLaughlin comes from Winnipeg. He received his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Alberta. He is the author and editor of numerous books. His areas of interest include applied ethics, popular culture, and Holocaust studies. Jeff has taught at TRU since 1993.

I work in the Philosophy of Humour. I look at question like the ethics of humour. What counts as a morally objectionable joke? Is ethnic and gender humour always wrong? Does laughing at a sexist joke make you sexist? Are you racist for laughing at a racist joke?

I also work on metaphysical questions regarding humour. What is laughter, or rather what does it mean that we laugh at things? What is it about funniness that makes it so enjoyable. What is the function of humour for humans? What is the evolution of humour?

There are some feminist and cultural questions as well. Humour is different for men and women. Men and women comedians approach and deliver humour differently, and that humour is received by audiences differently.

I also work a little in the fields of Philosophy of Sex and Love, particularly in the area of sexual perversion and in the field of Biomedical Ethics, where my interest is in euthanasia.

My primary area of research is the evolution of norms and normative judgments. My particular interest is in the relationships agents bear to their environments and to other agents. In my view, these relationships ground epistemic norms of justification, imputations of meaning, and practices of holding one another responsible.

I research and write extensively on the modern history of Russia, particularly related to Stalin/Stalinism, the Gulag, human rights issues, and the interplay between politics, society, and culture. My book, Stalin's Gulag at War (University of Toronto Press) will be released in the fall of 2018, and I am currently working on a book on the 20th-century history of Tomsk, Siberia.

Many students come into my classes with the assumption that Canadian history is boring. I love trying to change their minds, and encouraging them as they learn and share new knowledge about the complicated past of what we know of as Canada.

I am an interdisciplinary historian trained in women's and gender studies, queer studies, and social justice. My research interests include queer history, disability studies (past and present), feminist and gender studies, critical race studies, and visual culture. My research is two fold:

First, my latest research examines the overlapping work of disability and anti-racist advocacy in the queer community during the 1980s. I am particularly interested in the racialization of the AIDS epidemic and the discourses around disease and cis-normative "healthy" bodies that created an enduring collision between health and disability, something that remains to this day. This trauma is the focus of an upcoming co-authored manuscript on anticipating violence from outside and within the queer community, tentatively titled: Anticipated Violence and the Queer Subject (Concordia University Press).

Continue to research historic experience of conflict, violence, and catastrophe, particularly to understand better the workings of memory in traumatic experience. As well, I anticipate expanding research in archival settings in the UK and in Europe, with grant assistance and support. I am currently conducting research in Early Modern and Modern trauma, PTSD/PTSS, historic catastrophe, religious and spiritual perspectives of survival in violent contexts.

I research and write extensively on the modern history of Russia, particularly related to Stalin/Stalinism, the Gulag, human rights issues, and the interplay between politics, society, and culture. My book, Stalin's Gulag at War (University of Toronto Press) will be released in the fall of 2018, and I am currently working on a book on the 20th-century history of Tomsk, Siberia.

Jennifer Shaw (she/her/hers) is a cultural anthropologist, multimodal ethnographer, and creative facilitator. She completed her PhD in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University in 2018. Her teaching is transdisciplinary, bridging anthropology with sociology and political studies. She offers a particular focus in her courses on cross-disciplinary ethnographic research and investigations into precarity and persistence in everyday life.

Jenny is dedicated to public anthropology and open-access publishing: she is currently Co-Editor of Neos, an open-access and peer-reviewed publication of the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG). She previously worked for the Society for Cultural Anthropology and their flagship open access journal Cultural Anthropology for five years as a Social Media Editor.