Dr. Amber L. Griffioen
Welcome to my academic website! I am currently a Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duke Kunshan University and Associate Professor of the Practice at Duke University. Among other areas, I work on topics in value theory, philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, practical & social philosophy, philosophy of sport, and non-canonical philosophy as it relates to the history of ideas. Here you can learn a little more about me and find links to some of my scholarly papers, past organized events, and public appearances.
NEWS
JUNE 2024: I am entering my last year in full-time academia! More about my career-transition plans to come...
MAY 2023: Two new publications are out! First, my wholly new entry on Meister Eckhart for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is finally live! Second, my paper "Embryonic Afterlives", which explores how we might understand the resurrection of those human biological individuals who never developed bodies, has been published by TheoLogica.
MARCH 2023: Pluralizing Philosophy's Past is finally out and available in hardcover and ebook! Intro chapter available for FREE here. This collection of 15 accessible essays on neglected philosophical figures and traditions aims to provide readers with concrete access points to less familiar philosophical sources and methods. Showcasing the latest research by both up-and-coming and well-established scholars, each essay focuses on a particular topic relevant to the pluralization of the history of philosophy and offers advice for incorporating the figure, theme, or approach into the philosophy classroom.
DECEMBER 2022: My essay, "Toward a Philosophical Theology of Pregnancy Loss" is out in the important and timely volume, The Meaning of Mourning: Perspectives on Death, Loss, and Grief (Mikołaj Sławkowski-Rode, ed.; Rowman & Littlefield).
DECEMBER 2022: I'm pleased to announce that I've received a 2024 cross-training fellowship in psychology from the Munich School of Philosophy and the Technical University Munich, with which I hope to be able to pursue cross-disciplinary research on questions surrounding pregnancy loss, theodicy, and spiritual fortitude.
UPCOMING & RECENT APPEARANCES
"Loving Wisdom, Seeking Understanding: Gendered interlocutors and the pursuit of a philosophia spiritualis in late medieval Rhineland mystagogy", Workshop on "The Female Voice in Philosophical Conversations" (Rome, IT; May/June 2024)
"Philosophy, Theodicy, and the 'Purely Intellectual' Mode: Reorienting the Discourse", European Academy of Religion 2024 (Palermo, IT; May 2024)
“Forever Full, Eternally Empty: Meister Eckhart’s Pregnant God and the Spiritual Struggle of Miscarriage”, Conference on the History of the Philosophy of Pregnancy (Dayton, OH, USA; October 2023)
"New Perspectives on an Old Problem: Pregnancy Loss and the Problem of Evil", Australian Catholic University Seminar Series (online; Fall 2023)
"Making-Believe without Making Believe: Faith, Authenticity, and the Religious Imagination", conference on “God, Beliefs, and the Rationality of Assent" (Lucerne, CH; July 2023)
"Re-Imagining Theistic Semantics: Fictionalism, Understanding, and the Religious Imagination", Conference on religious and theological language (Tübingen, DE; June 2023)
June 2023: Panelist, Evening Roundtable on Free Will and Christianity, organized by SMD Konstanz (Konstanz, DE)
March 2023: "Losing a Part of You? On the Philosophical Relevance of Pregnancy and Pregnancy Loss", Paderborn Colloquium on Women and the Body (online/Paderborn, DE)
December 2022: "Passivity and the Political: Discovering Mysticisms of Resistance", Online Workshop on Critical Approaches to Mysticism (online/Duke Kunshan University)
September 2022: Co-Authored Talk: "Via Transformativa: Reading Descartes’ Meditations as Mystagogy" (w/K.G. Phillips), 6th International Conference of the European Society for Early Modern Philosophy (Theme: Rethinking the Narratives of Early Modern Philosophy; Copenhagen, DK)
August 2022: Invited Keynote: "Is Belief Beside the Point? Inclusive Epistemologies, Sapiential Approaches, and Non-Doxastic Theism", 2nd International School On Theism: East and West (Sharif University of Technology; Tehran, IR)
April 2022: Invited Talk (online): "Rethinking Religious Epistemology"; Philosophy Department Colloquium (University of Michigan-Dearborn, US)