Derek A. Michaud

@derek-michaud.bsky.social

1172 Followers 997 Following

Senior Lecturer and Chair of Philosophy, University of Maine.

Group of academics in regalia.
A majestic gray squirrel sits on the edge of a dumpster looking wistfully off into the distance.
Plato’s Maternal Cause: Dancing to the Cosmic Rhythm of Birth, Growth, and Death When - October 16th Time - 5:15-6:30 PM Location - Virtue Room, the Maples Abstract: What if philosophy is not a retreat into abstraction but a discipline attuned to life’s deepest rhythms? Plato points to this vision across his dialogues: in the Symposium, philosophy is ceaseless labor and birth; in the Phaedrus, it is the cultivation of divine seed within the soul of oneself and others; in the Phaedo, it becomes training for death, a practice of charming fear so that beauty may be found even in grief. Taken together, these moments reveal philosophy as care for the full cycle of becoming –birth, growth, decay – culminating, as Socrates insists, in a remembrance of the soul’s immortality and it’s return to its true abode, a world of color and movement and unimageable light and beauty. At the center of this Platonic vision stands the Timaeus and its maternal cause, Khôra: the wandering, elusive ground that nurtures all becoming and secures the deathlessness of the cosmos. Neither form nor matter, she is a restless in-between where permanence and change meet. Her enigmatic movement unsettles certainty, resists the neatness of reason, and compels us to confront perplexity, the risk that everything familiar may be transformed, that our arguments about life as we normally construe it, must be overcome, deconstructed and overturned. Philosophy demands that we, like Plato’s philosopher kings and queen, become guardians and warriors for the soul, facing the unknown not to romanticize uncertainty but to create with it - to begin again. Ultimately, for Plato, the task is not to preserve static truths but to open spaces, like Khôra, where thought and life may stir us once more, move us to listen and dance with the cosmic rhythm of birth, growth, and death that protects and sustains all things. Bio: Danielle A. Layne is Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University, specializing in ancie…
Book cover.
The 49th meeting of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle will be held at the University of Maine, Orono, from September 25-27, 2025. Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a 20th Century French existential philosopher whose pluralistic studies developed critical and dynamic new ideas about personhood, health and medicine, art, ecology, ethics, multiculturalism, politics and more. The conference is open to all, and will involve a few dozen international scholars visiting campus to give research presentations related to topics of broad academic interest. This year’s theme is “Health and Healing: Personal, Social and Environmental” and features keynote speakers Havi Carel (University of Bristol) and Drew Leder (Loyola Marymount University), as well as artistic performances. Along with the attached poster and links to the conference program, you can contact conference hosts Susan Bredlau, Don Beith and Kirsten Jacobson (MPC2025Conference@gmail.com) for more information, directions or questions about this event. https://www.merleauponty.org/ This event is generously funded by the Department of Philosophy, the McGillicuddy Humanities Center, the University of Maine Foundation, the Alton ‘38 and Adelaide Hamm Campus Activity Fund, & the Cultural Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series.
The separation of powers.
Platonism and Neoplatonism CFP
Image of Henry More from Theological Works, 1708.
Title page of Ralph Cudworth's True Intellectual System of the Universe, 1678.
Blusky notification showing "Jennifer Aniston" as a new follower.
Visualizing the Holocaust - 12/3 4pm Williams 120. Anne Knowles will speak as part of the McGillicuddy Humanities Center series Germany on Campus.
“Nearly Dialectical”: Adorno on Heidegger versus Lukács on Hegel Abstract: Adorno’s criticisms of Heidegger are notoriously acerbic. However, on some occasions, he seems more lenient, going so far as to say that Heidegger’s reading of Hegel is “nearly dialectical” and an illustration of “the labor of the concept”—at least as compared with Lukács’s reception of Hegel’s thought. This paper examines the terms of these rather odd and back-handed compliments and offers new insight into Adorno’s refusal of the intellectual alternative of “either Heidegger or Lukács.”
Anne Knowles: “Visualizing the Holocaust: Seeing anew with Digital Methods” December 3 @ 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm In this richly visual presentation, Anne Knowles (UMaine, History) will share highlights from years of developing geohistorical datasets and data visualizations that reveal the scale and dynamics, spaces, and places of the Holocaust in stunning new ways. Her work demonstrates geography as a visual way of knowing — and exploring — the past. This event is part of the McGillicuddy Humanities Center’s 2024-2025 Symposium, “From Talkies to TikTok: 100 Years of Audiovisual Storytelling.” It is supported by a “Germany on Campus” grant from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Williams Hall 120, Dec. 3 at 4:00 pm. A light reception will follow the presentation. This event is free and open to the public.
1901 over current Maine State Flags.
Nature and the Platonic Tradition: The Platonic tradition has, throughout history, offered a radically alternative understanding of the relationship between humans and nature and between humans and non-human animals. This panel invites papers that explore historical and contemporary instances of the Platonic conceptualization of nature. We encourage contributions that explore this tradition's contemporary application for reconceptualizing our collective understanding of nature. Exploration of the relationship between Platonic realism across multiple religious traditions and constructive proposals for inter-religious ecologies are encouraged. Papers may draw upon sources from antiquity to the present, ranging from philosophical, theological, poetic, and artistic. We also highly encourage the submission of papers relating to the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions generally, in both historical and constructive contexts. Papers on the metaphysics of participation are particularly encouraged.
Entailment, Contradiction, and Christian Theism, co-authored by UMaine Department of Philosophy Lecturer Michael DeVito spotted at #AAR.
Scholars presenting on mysticism or medieval religion at #SBLAAR24 should also consider sending in an abstract for "Perspectives on Mystical Vision & Aesthetic Experience," our 2025 conference in Gettysburg. @AARWeb @SBLsite https://americancusanussociety.org
This panel seeks to show how the translations of the Dialogues of Plato, the ontology of Plotinus, and the theurgical practices of Iamblichus and Proclus became part-and-parcel of Shīʾite mystical thought after the ninth century. The ideas in these original Greek works were also often misattributed and even heavily redacted to conform to the monotheistic worldviews of their Muslim and Christian readers. The papers in the panel examine the use of these translations in the thought of various philosophers and mystics during the Medieval period.
This panel seeks to show how the translations of the Dialogues of Plato, the ontology of Plotinus, and the theurgical practices of Iamblichus and Proclus became part-and-parcel of Shīʾite mystical thought after the ninth century. The ideas in these original Greek works were also often misattributed and even heavily redacted to conform to the monotheistic worldviews of their Muslim and Christian readers. The papers in the panel examine the use of these translations in the thought of various philosophers and mystics during the Medieval period.
The Recovery of Participatory Metaphysics
The Recovery of Participatory Metaphysics: The past several years have witnessed the remarkable recovery of participatory ontologies, a key conceptual element of the Platonic tradition. This recovery has occurred in many contexts, including Anglican, Evangelical, Reformed, and Roman Catholic circles. Participation constitutes a radically non-dualistic way of conceptualizing the relationship between God and creation, transcendence and immanence, the One in the many. It represents a theological and philosophical resource with a pedigree over 2,000 years old. Its implications range from the theological (soteriology and Christology), the philosophical (dualism, materialism), and the practical (aesthetics, environmental ethics). This invited panel will explore the motivations and implications of this recovery and is convened on the publication of Participation in the Divine (eds. Hedley, Tolan). Participants: Hans Boersma (Nashotah House Seminary), Andrew Davison (University of Cambridge), Yonghua Ge (Trinity Western University).
Sea gull sitting on window ledge.
Image of a cat peaking around a corner of a building.