Contact Information

Biography

Fred Evans received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stony Brook University after having earned an M.A. in Psychology from the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, and completed a year of Ph.D. work in that field at Duquesne. His dissertation was directed by Professor Edward S. Casey. Evans is currently Professor Emeritus in the Philosophy Department but still serving on dissertation committees, teaching a graduate course in the fall of 2021 and possibly thereafter, and presenting conference and invited papers, publishing others, and working on a new, single-authored book. Pre-retirement, Evans was Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator for the Center of Interpretive and Qualitative Research (CIQR) at 鶹ֱ. He is the author of Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy: An Essay in Political Aesthetics (Columbia University, 2019); The Multivoiced Body: Society and Communication in the Age of Diversity (Columbia University, 2008); Psychology and Nihilism: A Genealogical Critique of the Computational Model of Mind (SUNY, 1993); and co-editor (with Leonard Lawlor) of Chiasms: Merleau-Ponty's Notion of Flesh (SUNY, 2000). Evans has published numerous articles and book chapters on figures and issues in continental philosophy, psychology, social and political thought, political aesthetics, and technology. He is currently working on a book addressing the political ethics of contemporary cosmopolitanism. He also worked for five years at the Lao National Orthopedic Center and other positions in Laos, under the auspices of the non-profit NGO, International Voluntary Services, Inc., and taught philosophy for a year at La Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia.

Education

  • Ph.D., Philosophy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, 1986
  • M.A., Psychology, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, 1977
  • M.A., Philosophy, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind., 1969
  • B.A., Philosophy, Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind., 1966

 

School

Graduate
  • Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty
  • Philosophy of Michel Foucault
  • Gilles Deleuze: Anti-Oedipus
  • Gilles Deleuze: Difference and Repetition
  • Gilles Deleuze: A Thousand Plateaus
  • Philosophy of Communication: Saussure, Husserl, Derrida, Habermas, Lacan, Bakhtin
  • Language Theory and Continental Philosophy I: Saussure, Lacan, Irigaray, Kristeva
  • Language Theory and Continental Philosophy II: Gadamer, Habermas, Lyotard
  • Language Theory and Continental Philosophy III: Bakhtin
  • Power and Dialogue: Gadamer, Foucault, Kögler
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Philosophy of Psychoanalysis

Undergraduate
  • Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy
  • Basic Philosophical Questions
  • Philosophical Roots of Psychology
  • Integrated Honors Program: Basic Philosophical Questions
  • Later Modern (Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche)
  • Philosophy of Technology

Books:

Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy: An Essay in Political Aesthetics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019; paper, 2021.

The Multivoiced Body: Society and Communication in the Age of Diversity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008; paper, 2011.

Chiasms: Merleau-Ponty’s Notion of the Flesh, eds. Fred Evans and Leonard Lawlor. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2000.

Psychology and Nihilism: A Genealogical Critique of the Computational Model of Mind. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Articles and Book Chapters in Philosophy:

  • Co-authored with Greg M. Nielsen, “Mikhail Bakhtin and Phenomenology,” Nicolas de Warren and Ted Toadvine, eds. (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2024, forthcoming).
  • “Voice, as a Theme in Phenomenology” (2024), in N. de Warren and T. Toadvine, eds., Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. Springer, Cham.
  • “Cosmopolitanism and Creative Activism in Global Public Art,” a special issue of the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, “The Aesthetics of Creative Activism,” eds. Elspeth Tilley and Nick Holm. 81 (2) 2023, XX, 1–15.
  • “Deleuzian Cosmopolitanism: From the Capitalist Axiomatic to the ‘Chaosmocene’,” in Symbiotic Posthumanist Ecologies in Western Literature, Philosophy and Art: Towards Theory and Practice, eds. Peggy Karpouzou and Nikoleta Zampaki (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2023), 227–43.
  • “Whither? Black Lives Matter and the Shape of Democracy,” Sociétés: Revue Des Sciences Humaines et Sociales. Le numéro sur « Fractures sociales », 2020/4 (n° 150), 99–111.
  • “The Removal of Confederate Monuments in Public Locations,” Columbia University Press Blog, June 24, 2020.
  • “¿Voces de la democracia?: ciudadanía y arte público en el Millennium Park de Chicago,” en Cosmopolítica, democracia, gobernanza y utopía. Análisis transdisciplinares en diferentes contextos, ed. Luis Herrera Montero (Coor.), Editorial Centro de Estudios Sociales de América Latina 2020, 79–117. (Translation of my “Voices of Democracy? Citizenship and Public Art in Chicago’s Millennium Park”—see below).
  • “Public Art in Urban Spaces,” Handbook of Philosophy and the City, eds. Sharon Meager and Ronald Sundstrom (New York: Routledge, 2020), 149–59.
  • “Mente cosmopolita: matices en el ‘manifiesto cosmopolita’ de Beck,” en Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios sobre Cuerpos, Emociones y Sociedad (RELACES), No. 31, 2019, 20–31.
  • “Adriana Cavarero and the Primacy of Voice,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 32 (3), 2018, 475–87.
  • “Marx: Historical Materialism, Ethics, and Communication,” in An Encyclopedia of Communication Ethics, eds, Ronald C. Arnett, Annette M. Holba, and Susan Mancino (New York: Peter Lang, 2018), 309–13.
  • Critical Review of Edward S. Casey, The World on Edge, Indiana University Press, 2017, for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Nov. 2017.
  • “El cosmopolitismo que viene: Derrida y el pensamiento ‘fronterizo Latinoamericano’,” traducido por César Zamorano Díaz, Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso, Chile, Año 5 / 2017 / 1er semestre / N° 9 págs. 49–72.
  • “‘Murmurs’ and ‘Calls’: The Significance of Voice in the Political Reason of Foucault and Derrida,” in Between Foucault and Derrida, eds. Yubraj Aryal, Vernon Cisney, Nicolae Morar (Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 153–68.
  • “The Dilemma of Diversity: Rawls and Derrida on Political Justice,” in Justice through Diversity? ed. Michael Sweeny (New York: Rowan and Littlefield), 2016, 123–55.
  • “Derrida and the ‘Autoimmunity’ of Democracy,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Special SPEP Edition, 30 (3), 2016, 303–15.
  • “The Dilemma of Public Art’s Permanence,” Public Art Dialogue, Special Edition on Permanence in Public Art, Guest Editor, Erika Doss, 6 (1), Spring, 2016, 58–81.
  • “Deleuze’s Political Ethics: A Fascism of the New?” Deleuze Studies 10 (1), 2016, 85–99.
  • “Martin, Derrida, and ‘Ethical Marxism’,” Radical Philosophy Review 18 (2), 2015, 203–21.
  • “Cosmopolitanism ‘To Come’: Derrida’s Response to Globalization,” in A Companion to Derrida, eds. Zeynep Direk and Leonard Lawlor (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 550–65.
  • “Ethics and the Voices of the Past,” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 5 2014, 5 (3), 359–73 (a special edition on ‘The Middle Ages and the Holocaust,’ eds. N. Caputo and H. Johnson).
  • “Foucault and the ‘Being of Language’,” in The Cambridge-Foucault Lexicon, eds. Leonard Lawlor and John Nole (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 236–42.
  • “Citizenship and Public Art: The Political Aesthetics of New York’s 9/11/01 Memorial,” Belmont University Symposium Journal 3, 2013/backdated 2012, 79–105.
  • “The Clamor of Voices: Neda, Barack, and Social Philosophy,” Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy 17 (2), Fall/Automne, 2013, 158–77.
  • “Voices and the ‘Spirit of Place’,” In Exploring the Work of Edward S. Casey: Giving Voice to Place, Memory, and Imagination, eds. Azucena Cruz-Pierre and Donald A. Landes (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 215–24.
  • “Citizenship and Public Art: Chicago’s Millennium Park,” in Outrage! Art, Controversy, and Society, ed. Richard Howells, Andreea Ritivoi, Judith Schachter (New York: Palgrave, 2012), 144–71.
  • “Citizenship and Public Art: The Political Aesthetics of New York’s 9/11/01 Memorial,” Belmont University Symposium Journal 3, 2013/backdated 2012, 79–105.
  • “9/11: The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and Cultural Rights,” Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry 6.14, Winter, 2011.
  • “‘Unnatural Participations’: Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, and Environmental Ethics,” Philosophy Today 54, 2010, 142–52. (SPEP Supplemental Volume 35 of Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, eds. Cynthia Willett and Leonard Lawlor).
  • “Deleuze, Bakhtin and the ‘Clamour of Voices’,” Deleuze Studies 2(2), 2008, 178–200.
  • “La sociedad de todas las voces: Los zapatistas, Bajtín y los derechos humanos,” traducción por Juan Carlos Grijalva, Alteridad (revista académica, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y de la Educación, Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, Ecuador), No. 5, Nov. 2008, 44–62 (Spanish trans. of published English versión).
  • “Iris Marion Young and ‘Intersecting Voices’,” Philosophy Today 52, 2008, 10–18. (SPEP Supplemental Volume 33 of Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, eds. Peg Birmingham and James Risser).
  • Entries on “Genealogical Critique” and “The Center for Interpretive and Qualitative Research,” for The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods, ed. Lisa M. Given (London: Sage Publications, Inc.), 369–71, 73–74, 2008.
  • “Chiasm and Flesh,” in Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts, eds. Rosalyn Diprose and Jack Reynolds. Stocksfield, UK: Acumen Publishing Limited, 2008, 184–93.
  • (with Barbara McCloskey) “Sixties Redux? A Report from the 2004–05 Carnegie International (or, Kutlug Ataman’s Provocation),” Kunst und Politik 9, 2008, 175–81.
  • “Citizenship, Art and the Voices of the City: Wodiczko’s The Homeless Projection.” In Acts of Citizenship, eds. Engin Isin and Greg Nielsen. London: Zed Books, 2008, 227–46.
  • (with Barbara McCloskey) “The New Solidarity: A Case Study of Cross-Border Labor Networks and Mural Art in the Age of Globalization,” Toward a New Socialism, ed. Anatole Anton and Richard Schmitt. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, 483–96.
  • “Lyotard, Foucault, and ‘Philosophical Politics,’” International Journal of the Humanities 3, 2006, 85–98.
  • Entries on “Psychology,” “Cognitive Science,” “Bakhtin,” “Hubert Dreyfus,” “Dialogism,” and “Heteroglossia/Monoglossia” for the Edinburgh University Press Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, ed. John Protevi, Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2005, and for A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, ed. John Protevi, Yale University Press, 2006.
  • “Multi-Voiced Society: Philosophical Nuances on Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children,” Florida Journal of International Law 16:3, 2004, 727–41.
  • “Cyberspace and the Concept of Democracy,” Studies in Practical Philosophy: A Journal of Ethical and Political Philosophy 4:1, 2004, 71–101. (Originally published in First Monday.)
  • “Witnessing and the Social Unconscious,” Studies in Practical Philosophy: A Journal of Ethical and Political Philosophy 3:2, Fall 2003, 57–83.
  • “Lyotard, Bakhtin, and Radical Heterogeneity,” Continental Philosophy 8, 2003, 61–74.
  • “Bakhtin, Communication, and the Politics of Multiculturalism.” Reprinted in Mikhail Bakhtin: Sage Masters of Modern Social Thought, vol. IV, ed. Michael E. Gardiner. London: SAGE Publications, 2003, 271–93. (Originally published in Constellations.)
  • “Dialogisme et droits de l’Homme au Chiapas,” trans. Louis Jacob, Cahiers de recherche sociologique no. 36, 2002, 75–104 (translation of my “Voices of Chiapas”).
  • “Genealogy and the Problem of Affirmation in Nietzsche, Foucault, and Bakhtin,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 27:3, 2001, 41–65.
  • “Cyberspace and the Concept of Democracy,” First Monday 5 (10) (October 2000) URL: (a peer-reviewed electronic publication).
  • “Voices of Chiapas: The Zapatistas, Bakhtin, and Human Rights,” Philosophy Today 42, 2000, 196–210. (SPEP Supplemental Volume 25 of Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, ed. Linda Martín Alcoff and Walter Brogan).
  • “‘Chaosmos’ and Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Nature,” Chiasmi International: Trilingual Studies Concerning the Thought of Merleau-Ponty 2, 2000, 63–82.
  • “The Value of Flesh: Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy and the Modernism/Postmodernism Debate” (with Leonard Lawlor); critical introductory essay to Chiasms: Merleau-Ponty's Notion of the Flesh, ed. Fred Evans and Leonard Lawlor. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2000, 1–20.
  • “Merleau-Ponty, Lyotard and the Basis of Political Judgment,” in Rereading Merleau-Ponty: Essays Across the Continental-Analytic Divide, ed. Lawrence Hass and Dorothea Olkowski. New York, NY: Prometheus Press, 2000, 253–74.
  • “‘Solar Love’: Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and the Fortunes of Perception,” Continental Philosophy Review 31:2, 1998, 171–93.
  • “Voices, Oracles, and the Politics of Multiculturalism,” Symposium 2:2, 1998, 179–89.
  • “Bakhtin, Communication, and the Politics of Multiculturalism,” Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 5:3, 1998, 403–23.
  • “Technology as Art and the ‘Spheres of Freedom and Necessity,’” Research in Philosophy and Technology 14, 1994, 219–34.
  • “Marx, Nietzsche, and the ‘Voices of Democracy,’” in Paradigms in Political Theory: Marxism-Liberalism-Postmodernism, ed. Steven Jay Gold, Iowa State University Press, Spring 1993, 79–97.
  • “To ‘Informate’ or ‘Automate’: The New Information Technologies and Democratization of the Work Place,” The Journal of Social Theory and Practice 17:3, 1991, 409–39.
  • “Cognitive Psychology, Phenomenology, and the ‘Creative Tension of Voices,’” Philosophy and Rhetoric 24:2, 1991, 105–27.
  • “Language and Political Agency: Derrida, Marx, and Bakhtin,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 28:4, 1990, 249–66.
  • “Marx, Nietzsche, and the ‘New Class,’” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 4:3, 1990, 505–24.
  • “Marx, Nietzsche, y ‘La Nueva Clase,’” trad. por Magdalena Holguin, Ideas y Valores num. 74–75, Agosto-Diciembre, 1987, Publicacion de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia, 81–98.

Translations in Philosophy:
  • Jean-François Lyotard, “On the Strength of the Weak,” in Jean-François Lyotard, Toward the Post-Modern, ed. Robert Hurley and Mark Roberts, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1993, 62–72.
  • Mikel Dufrenne, “Intentionality and Aesthetics,” in Mikel Dufrenne, In the Presence of the Sensuous: Essays in Aesthetics, ed. Dennis Gallagher and Mark Roberts, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1987, 3–12.
  • With Hugh J. Silverman, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “The Experience of Others,” in “Merleau-Ponty and Psychology,” a special issue of the Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, 18 (1, 2, & 3), 1985, 33–63.

Inter-Disciplinary Publications:
  • “Integrating Biotechnology and Sustainable Agriculture: Report on the Biopesticides Conference Workshop,” (with Anne K. Hollander and Alan Wood), in National Agricultural Biotechnology Council, Report 1: Biotechnology and Sustainable Agriculture: Policy Alternatives, ed. June Fessenden MacDonald (Ithaca, NY: Boyce Thompson Institute, 1989), vol. 1, 14–20.
  • “Research and Socio-Economic Rehabilitation Concerning the Handicapped in Laos,” in M. Barber and A. Dore, eds., Sangkhom Khady San: Colloques en Sciences Humaines, Vientiane, Laos, 1974, 65–72.
  • “Lao Village Study: Economic, Social and Cultural Factors Related to Community Development in Tasseng Xieng Mene,” a research monograph prepared for the Lao Government/International Voluntary Services, Inc., 1971; a copy of this monograph is included in the Cornell University South East Asian Studies Microfilm Library.