Philosophy
Share This

Dr. Barthold

Lauren Swayne Barthold

Dr. Lauren Swayne Barthold
Associate Professor
Philosophy
Coordinator, Gender Studies

Lauren Swayne Barthold joined the Department in 2005 as Assistant Professor of Philosophy. She received her Ph.D from the New School for Social Research in 2002, where she wrote her dissertation, under the supervision of Richard J. Bernstein, on Gadamer's conception of truth. She also holds an M.A. in Philosophy from Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, B.C.) and an M.C.S. from Regent College (Vancouver, B.C.). Previous teaching positions include Eugene Lang College, Haverford, and Siena. She has written and taught on Gadamer, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, Hannah Arendt, Harry Frankfurt, Jürgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Martin Heidegger. Other areas of research and teaching interests include philosophy and literature, feminism, ethics, American pragmatism, and hermeneutics. She is founder of the North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics (NASPH Home Page). Dr. Barthold was instrumental in starting the Gender Studies Minor at Gordon, which she currently directs.

Having recently published a book, Gadamer's Dialectical Hermeneutics (Lexington 2010), she is now working on a new book exploring issues of gender identity from a hermeneutical perspective.

Presentations

2010
  • "Gender as Interpretation," Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the Humanities Institute of Ireland (February)
2009
  • "Religion as an Act of Betrayal," NASPH annual meeting (September)
  • "Gadamer's Philosophy of Religion?" Boston College Annual Workshop (October)
  • "Hermeneutics and Realism," Gordon College, Psychology and Philosophy Workshop (October)
2008
  • “Is Play Enough?” invited colloquium commentator, American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division Meeting, December
  • “It and Thou: Brandomian Mastering and Gadamerian Befrending of Texts,” SPEP, October
  • “Shalom Feminism,” Convocation, Gordon College, April
  • “What is Objectivity For?” Gordon College Philosophy Club, April
  • “Qualifications of the Subject,” invited colloquium commentator, American Philosophical Association, Central Division Meeting, April
2007
  • “Weak Thought, Strong Faith: Is a Post-Metaphysical, Publicly Relevant Religion Possible?”, SPEP panel presentation, November
  • “Feminist Theory and the Church,” invited lecture for “Gender and the Church” course, Gordon College, April
  • “Rorty on Religion,” invited paper for University of New Hampshire Philosophy Colloquium, March
2006
  • “Hermeneutics’s Good,” Society for Phenomenological and Existential Philosophy, October
  • “Danger Keep Out! The Controversy over Christ in the Public Square,” Christ in Contemporary Cultures Conference, September
  • “Hermeneutics and the Joy of Being,” North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics, Annual Conference, June
2005
  • “Rethinking Truth: The Relevance of a Hermeneutical Conception of Truth for Christianity,” C.S. Lewis Summer Institute, Oxford, England, July
2004
  • “How Hermeneutical is He? A Gadamerian Critique of Richard Rorty,” Symposium presentation, APA Eastern Division, December
  • “Richard Rorty on Conversation and Community,” Philosophy Colloquium, Siena College, March
2002
  • “The Movement of Truth: Bildung, Play, Transformation into Structure,” International Gadamer Symposium, Heidelberg, Germany, July
  • 2001
  • “From Logos to Dialogue: Some Consequences of a Hermeneutical Concept of Truth,” International Society for Universal Dialogue, Cracow, Poland, July
2000
  • “Heidegger on Truth: A Comparative Analysis of Being and Time and Parmenides,” Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, Germany, November

 
Publications

Forthcoming

  • "Rorty, Religion and the Public-Private Distinction," Philosophy and Social Criticism (2011)
  • Review Essay: "The Inner Word in Gadamer's Hermeneutics (John Arthos), Gadamer and the Question of the Divine (Walter Lammi), and Ricœur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion (Alison Scott-Bauman)," The Heythrop Journal

2010

  • Gadamer’s Dialectical Hermeneutics, Lexington Press, Monograph
  • "Friendship and the Ethics of Understanding," Epoche: Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 14, no.2 (Spring): 417-430
  • Review: "The Devil Reads Derrida" (James K. A. Smith) Christian Scholars Review, vol. 39, no. 2 (Winter)

2009

  • "Beer, Latinas and the Scope of Identity," Faith and Ideas, vol. 2, no. 15 (October)

2007

  • “Towards a Shalom-Feminism,” Stillpoint, Winter

2005

  • “The Sheltering Sky: The Region of Aletheia,” in Between Description and Interpretation: The Hermeneutical Turn in Phenomenology, edited by Andrzej Wiercinski. Toronto: The Hermeneutics Press
  • “How Hermeneutical is He? A Gadamerian Analysis of Richard Rorty,”Philosophy Today, vol. 49, no. 3/5 2005: 236-244
  • Review of Wittgenstein and Gadamer: Towards a Post-Analytic Philosophy of Language, by Christopher Lawn. Philosophy in Review, vol. 25, no. 4 2005: 279-281

2004

  • “The Self as Morally Emergent: Charles Taylor and Harry Frankfurt on Personhood,” in Value Theory, edited by James Sasso. India: Anu Books

2000

  • “Towards an Ethics of Love: Arendt on the Will and St. Augustine,” Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 26, no. 6 2000: 1-20