Field of Study USA: Philosophy

Prof. Jeremy Rinker is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, where he is currently engaged in research that explores the intersections between peacebuilding, collective trauma, and systems of oppression. Prof. Rinker graduated with a PhD from George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (now called the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution) in 2009. His masters’ degree (2001) is from the University of Hawaii in Asian Religion. He holds a bachelor’s degree (dual major, 1995) from the University of Pittsburgh in Philosophy and Political Science.

Prof. Rinker’s research and writings have long focused on South Asian communities, untouchability, human rights, and narrative meaning making in identity-based social justice movements. His past work emphasizes the skills and practices of nonviolent conflict transformation in social justice movements decision making processes, justice advocacy, and identity formation. With background and expertise in restorative justice conferencing, program development, narrative analysis, and social movement organization, Prof. Rinker is also the editor of the Journal of Transdisciplinary Peace Praxis, an innovative new journal of peaceful social exploration and human flourishing. Prof. Rinker’s past publications include two books as well as academic articles in Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Peace and Change, The Canadian Journal of Peace Research, and the Journal of Peace Education, among other scholarly outlets. Prof. Rinker was a 2013 Fulbright-Nehru awardee in Banaras, India where he taught and engaged in research through the Malviya Centre for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University. He is currently writing a 3rd book on being trauma aware and emotionally mindful in conflict practice.

The social and psychological obstacles that past collective traumas place upon marginalized communities represents a deep intellectual lacuna in the social scientific understanding of structural violence (Galtung, 1969) and conflict transformation (Lederach, 1997, 2005). Only recently has the emerging field of peace and conflict studies (PCS) begun to take the embodiment of trauma in collectives seriously as an important dynamic variable in social conflict. Much work remains to be done to center collective trauma in our understanding of sustainable peace. As a result, marginalized communities continue to suffer persistent systemic and structural violence and indifference to their unique pasts. This gap in the research and practice literature represents a critical opportunity space for developing unique community engaged peacebuilding interventions which value unique identity differences. This is the seedbed of democracy, and Prof. Rinker’s research and teaching as a 2022-23 Fulbright-Nehru awardee would provide the space and structure to envision a more inclusive framework for trauma-informed peacebuilding while in the context of the world’s largest democracy.

Research on the diverse Indian social system provides unique opportunities to build awareness about collective historical trauma and solidarities with marginalized identities and communities in the United States, and elsewhere. The post-colonial context of modern Indian society can be described as a petri dish for this type of work. Prof. Rinker’s Fulbright-Nehru project seeks to engage both in-person and with B.R. Ambedkar archives at Symbiosis University (SU) to develop a trauma-informed framework for indigenous and inclusive peace practice. His previous work on identity, rights, and narrative awareness (Rinker, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2013, 2009) raises a rich set of comparative qualitative questions about the important connections between protracted social conflict, memory, and collective historical trauma. Prof. Rinker’s proposed Fulbright-Nehru project aims to outline what inclusive peace would look like in a heterogeneous society with competing identities and communities. In developing a trauma-informed lens for both understanding and nonviolently engaging social exclusion, this work aims to map potential solidarities among social justice and human rights social movements. Symbiosis University’s (SU’s) strong reputation in the social sciences provides an ideal mooring for this theory building research and teaching practice. Being able to collaboratively collect data and teach alongside social scientists and critical liberal arts thinkers will allow him to develop a grounded theory framework for trauma-informed peacebuilding. In developing his critical pedagogy through teaching Indian undergraduate students in peace and conflict resolution studies, his research and teaching will reinforce each other. Through teaching, interviews, and a series of workshops/focus circles developed in partnership with Symbiosis University, the Manuski Center (a human rights center also located in Pune), and the Ambedkar Museum and Memorial, Prof. Rinker will inductively explore the role collective trauma in developing peace praxis. With this proposed Nehru-Fulbright award he hopes to share an action science-oriented research experience at SU’s Center for International Education (SCIE), the Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Museum and Memorial, and the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies. This experience will allow Prof. Rinker to both collect data and engage in archival research of India’s rich civil society and social movement history.

Carlin Romano

Prof. Carlin Romano teaches media theory and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of America the Philosophical (Alfred A. Knopf/Vintage), described by the Los Angeles Review of Books as “Massive, impressive and indispensable…perhaps the best history of American philosophy of the past half-century”, and by National Public Radio as “dauntingly brilliant”. He is also the editor and contributor to Philadelphia Noir, a collection of original short stories in the highly praised Akashic Noir series.

As a journalist, literary critic, and public intellectual, Prof. Romano has held many prominent positions, including being the president of the National Book Critics Circle, literary editor and literary critic for 25 years for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and critic-at-large for several reputed publications. His criticism has appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Nation, the Wall Street Journal, the American Scholar, and the Village Voice. Prof. Romano has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Peking University’s Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, the First Foreign Philosophy Visiting Fellow at Fudan University, a Fulbright Scholar to Germany and Russia, and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Criticism, who was cited by the Pulitzer Board for “bringing new vitality to the classic essay across a formidable array of topics”.

As a philosopher, Prof. Romano has taught at prestigious institutions like Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and St. Petersburg State University. He is the author of the main article, “East Asian Philosophy of Religion”, in the International Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion and of an article on Umberto Eco in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.

As a pragmatism scholar, Prof. Romano is writing a book entitled Over There: The Internationalization of American Philosophy. Through the Fulbright-Nehru project, the book is extending its territory to India. Prof. Romano is also studying how Bhimrao Ambedkar, John Dewey’s most influential Indian student, shaped Indian law and politics. Besides, he is probing and analyzing modern Indian philosophy, cinema, literature, TV, and journalism to identify pragmatist elements and resonances.

Robert Pennock

Dr. Robert Pennock is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University where he is on the faculty of Lyman Briggs College, the departments of philosophy, computer science, and engineering, and the ecology, evolution, and behavior program. He received a BA with honors in philosophy and biology from Earlham College in 1980 and a PhD in history and philosophy of science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991. His research involves both empirical and philosophical questions that relate to evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and the scientific character virtues. He was an expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board intelligent design creationism case. He also develops software to help students learn about evolution and the nature of science using digital organisms. He is a co-founder of BEACON, an NSF Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, and he also directs the Vocational Virtues Project. He is the principal investigator (PI) of the VERITIES Initiative, which aims to implement a virtue-based approach to RCR (responsible conduct of research) training at scale; he is also the PI of the largest national study of the scientific ethical mindset. Dr. Pennock is a senior fellow and a past president of Sigma Xi and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His book Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. His latest book is An Instinct for Truth: Curiosity and the Moral Structure of Science.

In his Fulbright-Nehru project, Dr. Pennock is conducting a small-scale replication of his sociological/philosophical study of scientists’ views about the character virtues that are important for scientific research. These data will help gain an understanding about the scientific mindset and what scientific values are shared across cultures. Aspects of this idea of the scientific mindset were anticipated by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru’s notion of “scientific temper” and this project is exploring that connection philosophically and empirically. He is also giving talks and leading workshops on scientific virtue and responsible conduct of research for graduate students and faculty.