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Biography

Jennifer Ann Bates is Full Professor of Philosophy at 鶹ֱ (Ph.D., Toronto, 1997). She specializes in 19th-century German philosophy with an emphasis on Hegel. She is the author of Hegel’s Theory of Imagination (SUNY, 2004), Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination (SUNY, 2010), and co-editor with Richard Wilson of Shakespeare and Continental Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). She has published numerous book chapters, most recently on Hegel and Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece (in L’Héritage de Hegel / Hegel’s Legacy, 2022), on Hegel and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (in the Arden Shakespeare’s Coriolanus: A Critical Reader, 2021), and on “Sustaining the Trivial: Why the Liberal Arts and the Environment Need to be Sustained Together” (in The Global Sustainability Challenge, 2020). Her IOC 2022 Plenary Presentation, , is published in Resilience in Ecology and Health. Bates has published articles in the Wallace Stevens Journal, the Journal for Environmental Ethics, Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Memoria di Shakespeare, Philosophy Compass, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, and Philosophy Today.

Professor Bates is the editor of Idealistic Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.

Professor Bates established the Philosophy Duquesne–Heidelberg Exchange in 2013 and chaired it until 2016. She has served as a Heidelberg University Alumni Research Ambassador since 2013. More information can be found at the Heidelberg Exchange.

Education

  • Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Toronto, 1997
  • DAAD, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, 1992-93
  • M.A., Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, 1989
  • B.A., Philosophy and Literary Studies, University of Toronto, 1987

 

School

Graduate courses

  • Seminar on Schelling
  • Seminar on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
  • Seminar on Hegel’s Science of Logic
  • Seminar on Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature
  • Hegel and Shakespeare on Imagination
  • Kierkegaard’s Early Works
  • Kierkegaard’s Later Works
  • Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
  • Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason
  • Kant’s Critique of Judgment
  • Kant’s Religion Within the Bounds of Mere Reason
  • Imagination in 19th Century Continental Philosophy

Undergraduate Courses

  • Philosophy and Literature: Philosophical Shakespeare
  • Later Modern Philosophy
  • Consciousness in 19th C. Thought
  • Philosophy of the Environment
  • Philosophical Ethics
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Contemporary Continental Philosophy
  • Social and Political Philosophy
  • Introduction to Philosophy

Authored Books:

  • Hegel and Shakespeare on Moral Imagination (State University of New York Press, 2010). Paperback edition, July 2011. Slavoj Žižek calls this book “outstanding” (in Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism); it is reviewed in Choice (Recommended), Hegel Bulletin, and Shakespeare Jahrbuch 2015.
  • Hegel’s Theory of Imagination (State University of New York Press, 2004). It is reviewed in: The Review of Metaphysics, The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Dialogue: The Canadian Philosophical Review, The Journal of the History of Philosophy, The British Journal of Aesthetics, Philosophy in Review (Comptes rendus philosophiques), The Owl of Minerva (The Journal of the Hegel Society of America) and The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

Edited Book:

  • Shakespeare and Continental Philosophy, ed. Jennifer Ann Bates and Richard Wilson (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

Refereed Articles:

  • “The Rub of the Negative: Concrete Universality, the Sache selbst and Noumena in Cutrofello’s All for Nothing.” In a book discussion devoted to Andrew Cutrofello’s All for Nothing: Hamlet's Negativity, Philosophy Today 61.3 (Summer 2017).
  • “Absolute Knowing: Consternation and Preservation in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida,” in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Special Issue, “Why so Serious? On Philosophy and Comedy,” issue editor Russell Ford, 21.3 (September 2016), 65–82.
  • “Confusing Matters: Romeo and Juliet and Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature,” in “Thinking with Shakespeare,” special edition of Memoria di Shakespeare, eds. Rosy Columbo and Nadia Fusini, March 2014.
  • “Hegel and the Concept of Extinction.” In Philosophy Compass, Continental Series, ed. Andrew Cutrofello. Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Barnes. 2014.
  • “Hegel’s Inverted World, Cleopatra and the Logic of the Crocodile.” Special issue on “Shakespeare and Phenomenology,” ed. James Kearney and Kevin Curran. In Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, 54.3 (2012).
  • “An Inquiry into the Nature of Environmentally Sound Thinking,” in Environmental Ethics 25 (Summer 2003), 183–97.
  • “Stevens, Hegel and the Palm at the End of the Mind,” in The Wallace Stevens Journal 23.2 (Fall 1999), 152–66.

Book Chapters:

  • “Rewilding: A Hegelian Reflection.” In Gerald Magill, ed., Resilience in Ecology and Health (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023), 25–52.
  • “Broken at the Nodes: Ekphrastic Crisis and Speculative Moral Receptivity in Hegel’s Religious Phenomenology and Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece.” In Kaveh Boveiri, ed., L’Héritage de Hegel / Hegel’s Legacy (Quebec City: University of Laval Press, 2022).
  • “Hegel’s Rome and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus—Grounds for Tragedy,” in Coriolanus: A Critical Reader, Arden Early Modern Drama Guides, ed. Liam E. Semler. The Arden Shakespeare (London, Oxford, New York, New Dehli, Sydney: Bloomsbury, Feb 2021).
  • “Sustaining the Trivial: Why the Liberal Arts and the Environment Need to be Sustained Together.” In Gerald Magill and James Benedict, eds., The Global Sustainability Challenge, pp. 42–64. U.K. and U.S.A.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
  • “Kiss me K…: Engendering Judgment in Kant’s 1st Critique and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew,” in The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Philosophy, ed. Craig Bourne and Emily Caddick-Bourne, 2019.
  • “Hegel’s ‘Instinct of Reason’ and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: What is a Relevant Aufhebung of Nature? Of Justice?” in The Philosophy of Theatre, Drama and Acting, ed. Tom Stern (Rowman and Littlefield International Limited, December 2017).
  • “Hamlet and Kierkegaard on Outwitting Recollection.” In Shakespeare and Continental Philosophy, eds. Jennifer Ann Bates and Richard Wilson. (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).
  • “The Problem of Genius in King Lear: Hegel on the Feeling Soul and the Tragedy of Wonder,” in Person, Being, and History: Essays in Honor of Kenneth L. Schmitz, ed. Robert E. Wood and Michael Baur (Catholic University of America Press, 2010).

Book Chapter on and Interview with Jennifer Bates:

  • “Mediating Play: Analyzing Jennifer Bates’s ‘Interplay’ with Hegel, Shakespeare, and Morality,” by Stephanie Zubcik, in Philosophical Apprenticeships: Essays on Contemporary Canadian Continental Philosophers, ed. Jay Lampert and Jason Robinson (University of Ottawa Press, 2009).

Book Reviews:

  • Book Review of The Accessible Hegel by Michael Allen Fox (Humanities Books, 2005) in Philosophy in Review XXVII.1 (February 2007), 27–29.
  • Book Review of Hegel and the Symbolic Mediation of Spirit by Kathleen Magnus (SUNY, 2001) in Philosophy in Review XXII.5 (October 2002), 341–43.
  • Book Review of Son of Spirit by David Farrell Krell (SUNY, 1997) in Canadian Philosophical Reviews, 28.1 (February 1998), 40–41.

Other Publications:

  • Abstract of Thesis in Bulletin of The Hegel Society of Great Britain 36 (Autumn/Winter 1997).
  • “Report on ‘The Idea of System of Transcendental Idealism in Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel’—An International Conference at Dartmouth College, August 27–30, 1995,” in Bulletin of The Hegel Society of Great Britain 33 (Spring/Summer 1996).
  • “Tips for Teaching Assistants,” in The Teaching Handbook (University of Toronto Philosophy Department, 1995).
  • Dissertation on Kant. Title TBA. Aaron Higgins-Brake. On-going (2018–).
  • “The Dialectic of Naturgeist in Hegel’s Anthropology: Soul, World, and Bodiliness,” by Jiho Oh. Defended July 2020. Received McAnulty Dissertation Fellowship Award, 2018–19.
  • “Externality in Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature,” by Martin Krahn. Defended November 2018. Received 鶹ֱ Annual Distinguished Dissertation Award [Humanities], 2018–19.
  • “Thinking Without Concepts: The Aesthetic Use of The Logical Functions in Kant’s Third Critique,” by Stephanie Adair. Defended April 2016. Co-supervised by Frau Prof. Dr. Claudia Bickmann, University of Cologne, Germany. This dissertation was nominated by the Philosophy Department for a 鶹ֱ Annual Distinguished Dissertation Award, 2015–16; it received “Honorable Mention” from the Awards Committee.
  • “Sadra and Hegel on the Relationship Between Essence/Existence and Subject/Object,” by Kamal Abdulkarim Shlbei. Defended May 2013.
  • Interview of Bates by Heidelberg University Magazine
  • 2022 IOC Plenary Speech: 
  • 2015: Presidential Scholarship Award
  • 2013: “HAIreconnect Grant” (Heidelberg Alumni International, University of Heidelberg) grant to travel to Heidelberg, Germany and set up student/faculty exchanges between our universities
  • 2013: Grant Writing Fellowship (McAnulty College Award)
  • 2011: National Endowment for the Humanities, for “Hegel Logic Day” conference involving four invited panelists (three from Canada) and guest student attendees from Canada as well as my Hegel Logic graduate class from Duquesne, October 28, 2011
  • 2010: National Endowment for the Humanities, for Hegel Conference, “Hegel’s Absolute Spirit: Connections Between Art, Religion and Philosophy,” March 19–21, 2010
  • 2009: National Endowment for the Humanities, toward publication of my second book, Hegel and Shakespeare on Religious Imagination