Joshua Ramey

Biography

Joshua Ramey studied Philosophy and English in the Honors Program at Seattle Pacific University, graduating summa cum laude and co-valedictorian of his 1998 class.  In 2006 Joshua took his PhD from Villanova University with a thesis on the role of art in the thought of Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995).  He taught at Rowan University from 2007-2010, and joined the Haverford faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy in 2010.  This year Joshua will teach two courses in the Writing Progam, The Nature of Money (Fall '11) and Are We Modern? (Spring '12).  He will also coordinate the Transdivisional Faculty-Student Workshops, sponsored by the Hurford Humanities Center, and serve as faculty advisor for The Haverford Journal.

Research

Joshua’s research is in Contemporary European Philosophy, Critical Social Theory, and Continental Philosophy of Religion.  In particular, his work is concerned with how post-Marxist, psychoanalytic, and critical social thought reveal a complex logic of human sociality, and expand received notions of the potencies relevant to the continuity of human life.  He is especially interested in how these traditions uncovered deeply problematic and yet potentially transformative relations between reason and the affects, and alerted us to how affective life both generates and interrupts circuits of reason and agency in the context of complex networks of unconscious, social, and ecological forces.

In July 2012 Duke University Press will publish his first book, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal.  The book addresses why certain experimental modern artists and philosophers, such as Gilles Deleuze, have turned to ancient programs of ritual initiation and esoteric conceptions of nature as ways of overcoming modern impasses in the culture and subjectivity.  Other publications have taken up the work of intellectuals such as Adorno, Zizek, and Laruelle, and artists such as Hitchcock, Warhol, and Cronenberg. Joshua’s current research is on the critique of fundamental assumptions in economic theory--especially conceptions of money--in light of the ongoing crisis of capitalist political economy, a project undertaken with Haverford Economist Indradeep Ghosh.

Courses: Spring 2012, Haverford