Department of Philosophy and Religion

1
Spring 2005
Department of Philosophy and Religion
Greetings, again, friends and alums of the
Southern Miss Department of Philosophy and
Religion! This year we welcomed two
new faculty members to our department Morgan
Rempel (see p. 3) and Chris Meyers (see p. 4).
We also recently finished a search for an
additional full-time faculty member in religion.
Mark Wagner, a specialist in Islam and Judaism
with a Ph.D. from NYU, was our choice, and we are
pleased to announce that he has accepted our
offer and will join us in the fall. After
passing various stages of university review, our
plan to begin offering a major in religion awaits
final approval by the Mississippi College Board,
which we expect to receive in 2006. (see p. 2).
Last October, Dr. Richard Creel
delivered the inaugural John F. Nau Memorial
Lecture, How to Have Your Faith and Doubt It,
Too, a topic that would have been of particular
interest to Dr. Nau. Dr. Creel returned to his
native Mississippi Gulf Coast in retirement after
a long and distinguished career at Ithaca College
in New York, and we are fortunate to have him
back in the area. Part of the festivities
included a re-dedication of the John F. Nau
Conference
Room, occasioned by the departments relocation
to the third floor of the Liberal Arts Building.
Over seventy people attended the event, including
Dr. Naus wife, Johanna, and his son, Henry.
In other department news Our
department is hosting the annual meeting of the
Mississippi Philosophical Association, April 22
23. Paula Smithka is serving as president of the
MPA this year, and is co-chair of the program
committee along with Ken Curry from the Southern
Miss Department of Biological Sciences. The
featured speaker is Dr. Michael Ruse from Florida
State, one of the pioneers of contemporary
philosophy of biology, who will speak on The
Evolution-Creation Struggle A Very American
Story. Clayton Sullivans latest novel,
Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol Inside the Baptist
Church, has been released by NewSouth. Clayton
recently optioned the movie rights to the story
to MGM. Read more about the book at
www.claytonsullivan.com. Based on
responses to last years newsletter, we have
various bits of information to pass along
regarding our fine graduates. (see p. 6) Let us
know what you are up to! Also, on the back of
the inset response form, we have included a list
of graduates with whom we have lost contact. We
would be grateful if you can assist us in
locating any of these friends of the department.
Southern Miss
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p. 2
Michael DeArmey
My recent research has been devoted to two
topics. First, my work on the St. Louis
Hegelians (with Professor Jim Good of Rice
University) has resulted in the publication of a
three-volume edition of their writings, with
introductions and extensive commentaries and a
set of original essays focusing on their central
philosophical concerns. In the 19th century, not
only British philosophers but American thinkers
as well came under the influence of the German
philosopher Hegel (1770-1831). A group of
thinkers centered in St. Louis appropriated
Hegelian philosophy, expanded its scope, and
applied it to the understanding of America. In
so doing, they created an American version of
Hegelianism. They founded the first English
language journal in philosophy (The Journal of
Speculative Philosophy), transformed the St.
Louis public school system into the nations
finest example of public education, and created
from St. Louis and Chicago to the eastern
seaboard clubs and societies for the study of
philosophy, literature, and the arts generally.
One of the St. Louis Hegelians, William Torrey
Harris, eventually became the late 19th-century
equivalent of U. S. Secretary of Education.
Thomas Davidson left St. Louis to found the
Fellowship of the New Life and the Fabian Society
in London, then opened his Glenmore Summer School
for the Cultural Sciences in Keene, New York,
which brought together thinkers like William
James, John Dewey, and Josiah Royce for a summer
of philosophizing, camping, and hiking. George
Howison eventually left St. Louis and founded the
philosophy department at Berkeley, along with the
journal, The
Personalist. My seven years of research on this
group utilized four archives, involved finding
rare books printed by short-lived presses, and
required trips to London Aberdeen, Scotland
Keene, New York and Domodossola, Italy. My
second area of research aims at the publication
of a book on evil. The subject of this book is
not evil in relation to God, but wrong- and
evil-doing per se. The book begins with an
explanation of why evil has been neglected,
discusses evil as a subset of bad and of
wrong, offers a taxonomy of wrongdoing, and
then explores the hypothesis that evil is a
horrific form of wrongdoing having eight
characteristics that set it apart from ordinary
wrongdoing. Six types of evil are examined,
including genocide, enslavement, torture. Along
the way, auxiliary concepts such as
self-deception, horror, and forgiveness are
discussed. The book is rich in empirical
material drawn from history, psychoanalysis, and
biography. Evil-doing is the inversion of life,
its de-formation.
Our New Religion Major -Submitted by Dr.
Daniel Capper The Department of Philosophy
and Religion is planning to offer a new major in
religion as an important addition to our major in
philosophy. The religion major should attract
new students to the department and allow current
students to expand their fields of study. As the
University of Mississippi, Mississippi State, and
other public universities in the state lack such
a major, we hope to attract students from across
the state and the South who wish to explore
intellectual interests or prepare for graduate
studies in religion or the ministry.
Religion majors will be required to complete
thirty hours of credit in religious studies.
These hours will include REL 131, Comparative
Religion, as well as, at least one course in
Western religion, one course in Eastern religion,
and Philosophy of Religion. The remainder of the
course work allows students to
pursue their own personal interests in an
interdisciplinary fashion, since designated
courses in history, anthropology, sociology,
psychology, English, and political science will
count toward the degree. Naturally, the
new major will require the addition of new
courses to the curriculum. To this end,
Introduction to Islam and Religion and
Politics already have been added to our course
offerings. Plans for a course on Religion and
Violence are on the table. Other courses will
be added that reflect the interests of new
faculty members. Our aim is to provide our
majors in religion with a broad understanding of
religious themes, ideas, and practices from
around the globe. Please help us spread the
word! We would appreciate receiving referrals of
people who might be interested in this exciting
new program.
3
Morgan Rempel
p. 3
Though I am still a relative newcomer to the
department, to Southern Miss, and to life in the
Deep South, I am pleased to report that my
experiences so far have been decidedly positive.
My wife, Nora, and I were married in Toronto on
August 3, just two days prior to beginning our
long drive from Canada to southern Mississippi!
Nora now teaches at Sacred Heart School in
downtown Hattiesburg. We have been consistently
impressed with the kindness and warmth of
colleagues, neighbors, students, and even
strangers.
published several articles in this area, as well
as a book, Nietzsche, Psychohistory and the Birth
of Christianity, which examines the philosopher's
unorthodox philosophy of religion in general, and
his reflections on Jesus, Paul, and the first
Christians in particular. My current
research is focused on Nietzsches suggestive
contrasting of the dying Socrates and the dying
Jesus. Nietzsches seemingly simple question at
Beyond Good and Evil 187 What does such an
assertion say of the man who asserts it? turns
out to be the starting
Prior to arriving at Southern Miss, I
taught a wide variety of courses at the
University of Toronto and at Calvin College in
Michigan. My bachelor's degree in psychology is
from York University, and my master's degree and
doctorate in philosophy are from the University
of Toronto. My primary undergraduate
teaching responsibility here at Southern Miss is
the new university core course, PHI 171 Ethics
and Good Living. The chief goal of this course
is to encourage students to reflect upon the role
and nature of morality in general, and in their
own lives in particular. Among the questions
raised in the readings and discussions are What
gives life meaning? What is the basis of
morality? Why should I follow moral rules?
Is morality a matter of the head or the heart?
Should we look to a common moral standard, or
should we all be free to act according to our own
moral codes? Readings are drawn from classic
works of philosophy and literature. Philosophical
works by Bentham and Hobbes are studied alongside
selections from literary masterpieces by
Dostoyevsky and Voltaire. Student feedback about
this new course has been very positive.
This spring I have also had the pleasure of
developing and teaching a graduate course titled
The Modern Critique of Christendom. This
course focuses on the very different critiques of
modern Christianity advanced by Kierkegaard,
Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Freud, and Russell. As one
might expect, class discussions are often
animated. I have been very impressed with the
caliber of our graduate students and their
ability to absorb, discuss, and critique the
often difficult, and always challenging, ideas
presented in this class. The opportunity to work
with graduate students was one of the things that
attracted me to the Southern Miss Department of
Philosophy and Religion, and I suspect I often
learn as much from class discussions as the
students do. My principal area of research
thus far has been the intersection of 19th and
20th century continental philosophy and the
philosophy of religion. I have
point for a great deal of his philosophical
activity. His career-long fascination with the
problem of Socrates, for example, while focused
on the mind and possible motivation of the Greek
philosopher is in many ways an investigation of
the problems of reason, theory, virtue, and
morality. Nietzsches highly original discussion
of Jesus, likewise, affords the reader tremendous
insight into the philosophers understanding of
love, pity and suffering. Most recently, I
have been examining Nietzsches ruminations on
the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte. Interestingly,
what impresses the philosopher most about the
Emperor is his inner condition (his will, his
strength of character, etc.) and not his military
conquests or political reforms.

Student Presentations Two of our current
students recently presented papers at the
Mississippi Academy of Sciences meeting held
February 17-18, 2005.   Malachi Martin  "The
Hand on the Wedge  Anti-Materialism, Intelligent
Design, and the Prospects of Culture"   Michael
Dodge  "Science's Conscience  The
Metaepistemological Implications of Pyrrhonian
Skepticism"   Malachi Martin and Michael Dodge 
"The Biological 'Individual'  Philosophical
Ruminations on an Enduring Quandary" Linda
Englade (00), who has gone on to do graduate
work in English, will present "King Lear 
Pagan's Play?" at the 2005 Waterloo Conference on
Elizabethan Theatre, June 16-18, 2005, at the
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. 
4
p. 4
Chris Meyers
become interested in business ethics and has
given me opportunity for scholarship in the area.
When I first taught the course, I was irritated
that the textbook I chose had an article
defending the practice of international
sweatshops but no article arguing against the
practice. So I wrote a little paper criticizing
the use of sweatshops for my students to read.
Eventually I rewrote this paper, and it has since
been published in the Journal of Social
Philosophy. I am also currently working on a
paper with a friend at UW-Waukeshaw arguing that
white- collar criminals should get very harsh
punishments, harsher than for comparable street
crimes. My first semester at Southern Miss,
I got the opportunity to teach an upper-level
class on Wittgenstein. This was not only
enjoyable for its own sake, it also allowed me to
do some research on Wittgenstein and to write the
paper Wittgenstein, Inverted Spectra, and
Orgasm, that I just presented at a philosophy
conference last month. I have done work in other
areas of applied ethics as well, including an
article on abortion that will be published in the
Journal of Value Inquiry, and I just finished a
paper arguing that the Iraq invasion was morally
wrong. My primary research interests are in
metaethics. Metaethics involves second-order
theories about ethics, such as the analysis of
moral concepts, the question of whether moral
judgments can be true or false, and, if so, what
makes them true. So far I have published an
article on the relation between belief, desire,
and motivation and another article arguing that
moral judgments can be objectively true or false
even though moral realism is false. This summer
I plan to start work on my book defending ethical
internalism. I intend to argue that making a
moral judgment necessarily entails having some
motivation to act accordingly, even though moral
judgments are objectively true or false. This
requires that beliefs alone can motivate us to
act independently of any desires. Although
there are things that I cannot find in the small
town of Hattiesburglike Belgian beer, Indian
food, brewing supplies, and exotic cooking
ingredientslife here, so far, has been good.
But a few days ago, I was watching a TV show on
ethnic cuisine in Chicago. I saw the VietNamese
deli where I used to get VietNamese sandwiches,
the Indian/Pakistani neighborhood where I used to
go frequently to eat, the Swedish neighborhood
where I used to live, and I got a little
homesick. So although living in rural Mississippi
is much nicer than I ever would have imagined, I
still miss the city of the big shoulders, hog
butcher to the world Chicago.
One of the unusual things about a career in
academia is that you have little or no choice of
what part of the world you are going to live in.
Having enjoyed living in Chicago for ten years
while earning my doctorate in philosophy at
Loyola University, I never would have decided on
my own to move to rural Mississippi (coming from
Chicago, Hattiesburg is rural to me). But I have
been pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable life
in Hattiesburg has been (so far). After
finishing my doctorate at Loyola, I worked for
two years at a nontenurable position at SMU in
Dallas. Living in Hattiesburg is much nicer than
living in Dallas. When I was offered the
position at Southern Miss, I knew it would be a
huge improvement over the job at SMUand not just
because of the smaller course load and living
wage. SMU had a definite country club
atmosphere. Most of the students seemed to be in
college only so that they could be in a
fraternity or sorority, and many of them had a
sense of entitlement and the intense disdain for
the poor typical of people who have never worked
a day in their lives. This made teaching
business ethics especially trying. I expected
that even though the students at Southern Miss
would be conservative politically, they would not
share the attitudes that I found so repugnant in
the majority of the SMU students. So far it
seems that my expectations were correct.
Though my main research interests are in ethical
theory and metaethics, one of my primary teaching
responsibilities here is teaching the business
ethics courses. This is always a difficult class
to teach since most of the students are business
majors and tend to think very concretely.
Fortunately, the students here seem to be open to
the idea that there might be some business
practices that are morally wrong, unlike the
bottom-line-oriented thinking that dominated SMU.
I have always tried to mix my teaching with my
research. So although it is not my main area of
interest, teaching business ethics has led me to
5
p. 5
News from the Coast - Submitted
by Dr. Allan W. Eickelmann
Brinkleys presentation was titled The
Presidency in Historical Perspective. He
spoke to a packed house of people from both the
university community and the Gulf Coast
community. I was very pleased to be able to
receive a grant of 1993 from The Mississippi
Humanities Council to help defray the cost of the
lecture. In January, we heard from Dr. Robert
Sternberg, who is the IBM professor of psychology
and education at Yale University. Dr. Sternberg
spoke on Leadership as a Decision. Lectures
featuring other prominent scholars and community
leaders are also scheduled for February, March
and April of 2005. As a final note, I just
want to say that it is a pleasure to be a member
of this faculty. I find that my labor is a labor
of love. I enjoy the association of my
colleagues, and I delight in my various roles as
instructor, researcher, and program coordinator.
I am now in my third year as the first full
time member of the philosophy and religion
faculty on the Coast. Currently I am teaching
both business ethics and comparative religion for
the department, as well as a section of
introductory sociology for the department of
Anthropology and Sociology. I am able to do this
because of my varied academic background in both
religion and in the social sciences. This dual
background is especially helpful in teaching both
comparative religion and business ethics. For
example, because of my background in
organizational behavior and management science, I
am able to approach business ethics with an eye
towards ethics management. This reflects a
long-standing interest that I have in integrating
ethical theory with social and organizational
policy. This dual interest can also be
recognized in a book project that I am currently
working on with Dr. Tom Lansford of the
Department of Political Science, International
Development, and International Affairs and Dr.
Eric Nelson of the Department of History. The
book is titled Justice and Violence, and it
focuses on the past, present and future of
political violence and pacifism. It is an
interdisciplinary anthology that expresses, as a
core concern, the ethics of both political
violence and pacifism, especially in light of the
dual phenomena of globalization and
fragmentation. As lead editor, I was especially
pleased to have Hans Kung consent to write a
conclusion to this volume. We hope that Justice
and Violence will become part of an on-going
series. It is with this in mind that I plan
to develop a course on Religion and Violence for
the spring semester of 2006. This is a topic
that needs serious consideration, as increasingly
around the world, sectarian violence is resulting
in a state of international chaos. I have
also been kept busy as chair of the newly
organized Issues and Answers lecture series at
the Gulf Park campus, developed in partnership
with the Sun Herald newspaper. In addition to
representatives from the Sun Herald, each college
of the university has a representative on the
lecture series committee who is responsible in
taking the lead in organizing the lecture related
to his or her college. This means that there are
five lectures during the academic year. The Arts
and Letters lecture in October of 2004 featured
Dr. Douglas Brinkley, who is the successor of Dr.
Stephen Ambrose as director of the Eisenhower
Center for American Studies at the University of
New Orleans. Dr.

• We Need Your Help!
• Like many states, Mississippi has been going
  through a time of financial belt-tightening.
  Support for higher education has decreased
  significantly in the last five years, and we are
  expecting another decrease in state support this
  year. The result has been rapid increases in
  tuition and very austere budgets for departments.
  During the same period our student enrollment
  has grown dramatically. We have doubled
  departmental enrollments in the last five years.
  
• Contributions to two funds managed by the USM
  Foundation help support our programs. One is the
  Tommy Blanton Philosophy and Religion Fund, which
  is directed towards current needs for equipment,
  professional development, student awards, special
  projects, and lectures. The other is the John F.
  Nau Endowment in Philosophy and Religion, which
  we are hoping to build to a level where it can
  provide continuing support for undergraduate and
  graduate scholarships. We appreciate whatever
  help you can give us. Please include the name of
  the fund with your contributions and send them
  to
• The University of Southern Mississippi
• USM Foundation
• 118 College Drive 10026
• Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0001

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p. 6
News from Our Graduates
Mary Joan Stewart (B.S. 54) retired from
missionary service with the International Mission
Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and
currently serves as chaplain for Hospice
Ministries in Richland, Miss. Regarding her
studies here, Mary writes, The main thing I
learned was how to think and reason for myself
rather than just accepting whatever I
heard/learned as truth. Dr. Nau inspired and
challenged me to do my best and to use my
God-given abilities. Richard Randall (B.A. 71
and M.A. 88) retired from the U.S. Army and now
teaches philosophy at North Idaho College in
Coeur dAlene. He is considering pursuing a
Ph.D. His thoughts on his training in philosophy
and religion are that it provided an excellent
background/grounding on the ideas and values of
much of our world, and exposed him to the great
value in constructive and critical thought
especially in anti-reactionary thought and the
possibilities of interdisciplinary thought and
action. Mark Lumpkin (B.A. 80) practices law
for Lumpkin and Reeves in Biloxi. Their firm
specializes in representing individuals in cases
against corporations, such as cases involving
securities fraud and product liability. Mark
writes that his training in philosophy and logic
provided a strong framework for analysis of
issues, and that the reading and writing that
are required in a philosophy discipline have been
invaluable. It provided a basis for creating
cohesive, persuasive and rational arguments,
something that I use daily. Leemon McHenry
(M.A. 80) went on to receive his Ph.D. from the
University of Edinburgh in Scotland and joined
the philosophy department at Cal-State Northridge
as a lecturer in 1997. He also does research
consulting for the Baum-Hedlund law firm in Los
Angeles, which led him to develop an interest in
bioethics, particularly ethical issues in
psychiatry and psychopharmacology. Dr. McHenry
has published extensively in philosophy. He
wrote Whitehead and Bradley A Comparative
Analysis, published by SUNY Press. He co-edited
three volumes in the Dictionary of Literary
Biography series for Gale and Reflections on
Philosophy Introductory Essays, the 2nd edition
of which was published by Longman. In addition,
Leemon has published numerous book chapters,
articles and reviews. See his Web page at
http//www.csun.edu/lmchenry/.
Bennie Crockett (M.A. 93) received his Ph.D.
from the University of Wales in 01 and in the
same year published a book of past presidential
addresses of the Mississippi Philosophical
Association. He currently works at William Carey
College in Hattiesburg, where he is professor of
philosophy and religion, co-director of the
Center for Study of the Life and Work of William
Carey, and vice-president of Institutional
Effectiveness and Planning. As to the value of
studying philosophy, Bennie writes that,
Philosophy has brought a coherence to the varied
courses I teach and tasks I do. Being able to
contextualize thoughts into their proper origin
has helped to provide some order and meaning for
the problems of contemporary intellectual
fragmentation and cultural chaos. Susan
Mullican (M.A. 87) currently teaches several
classes for us, both in Hattiesburg and on the
Coast. She regularly teaches business ethics and
is currently working on a paper about business
differential treatment of single and married
employees. Regarding teaching business ethics,
she says, Philosophy is necessary in the
business world to keep people ahead of the curve,
since philosophy teaches people how to think
outside the box. John Brenke (M.A. 93) is the
manager of Strategic Planning at Northrop Grumman
Ship Systems Division and an adjunct professor of
management at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community
College. He is also a newly appointed member of
the Ocean Springs School District Board of
Trustees. With regard to his training in
philosophy, John says he is always grateful.
Ben Maddox (M.A. 03) owns and manages a coffee
bar and CD/DVD store in St. Albans, Vt., and he
and his wife are expecting their first
child. Jason Busch (M.A. 03) is now in his
second year of law school at the University of
Oregon and is flourishing. Jason tells us that
he competed in the national appellate advocacy
competition in San Francisco a few weeks ago,
where he and his partner won and will now go on
to Chicago to compete against 16 other teams for
the finals.  
Department of Philosophy and Religion 304
Liberal Arts Building Phone [phone] Visit
our Web site www.usm.edu/philrel/
7
Alumni Response Form Wed like to hear from you!
Let us know what you are doing now, so that we
can add you to our alumni news section in future
editions of our newsletter.
Name _____________________________________________
_________________ Degrees ________________________
_______ Year awarded ______________ Address
(corrections only) _______________________________
____________ _____________________________________
_______________________________ E-mail
__________________________________________________
____________ Current Activities
__________________________________________________
_ ________________________________________________
____________________ _____________________________
_______________________________________ __________
__________________________________________________
________ _________________________________________
___________________________ ______________________
______________________________________________ Re
flections on your training in philosophy _________
__________________________________________________
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____________________________ _____________________
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________________ _________________________________
___________________________________ Mail Your
Response to Newsletter Editor The University of
Southern Mississippi Department of Philosophy
and Religion 118 College Drive
5015 Hattiesburg, MS 39406-0001 Or e-mail your
info to Samuel.Bruton_at_usm.edu
Southern Miss
8
The following is a list of those graduates with
whom we have lost contact. We would be grateful
for any help you can offer in locating any of
them.
Mr. William Harrison Mr. Harold Wilder Mr. Gerald
Bridges Rev. Oscar Petty Ms. Mary Stewart Rev.
George Horn Mr. Charles Barker Jr. Rev. James
Ramey Jr. Mr. Robert Alexander Rev. Jack
Troutman Rev. Joseph Cothern Mrs. Julia Long Mr.
Wilton Carter Mr. Henry Parker Mr. John Coker
Sr. Mr. John Middleton Rev. Lawrence Goff Mr.
Roscoe Redd Jr. Mr. Malcolm Solomon Mr. John
Hoelzer Mr. David Mangum Ms. Sharon Faughn Mr.
John Krauser Mr. David Mangum Mr. Edgar Patterson
Jr. Mr. Thomas Wallis Mrs. Fran Colmery Mr.
Charles Schofield Dr. Donald Mangum Mr. Eugene
White Jr. Mr. Erik Lowrey Mr. Richard
Zachary Mr. David Pease Mr. William Flint Mr.
David Waits Jr. Mr. Clay Bradley Mr. Isaac
May Ms. Elizabeth Boyle Mr. John Hughes Mr. James
McMichael III Mr. Jonathan Spear Rev. Howard
Lips Mr. Mitchell Hedgepeth Ms. Laura Myers Ms.
Ingrid Ellerbee Ms. Brenda Brown Mr. James
McMillon Mr. Ronald Jordan Mr. Scott Hetrick Ms.
Edie Lundy Ms. Angela Hilton Mr. David Tims Ms.
Stephanie Kilbourn
Mr. James Spiegel Mr. Patrick Wallace Mrs. Sharon
Samson Mr. Andrew Thomas Mr. Xing-Hui Tan Mr.
Michael Mcneese Mr. James Reed Mr. Peter
Grady Mr. Gene Lawrence Mr. Robert Engler Jr.
Mr. David Burgess Mrs. Christine Brown Mr.
Scott Pfaff Dr. Mildred Lowrie Mr. Carlisle
Henderson Mr. Heath Hudson Ms. Jennifer
Dooley Mr. Shawn Lowrey Mr. Alvin McDonald Mr.
Robert Landrum Mr. Andrew Evans Ms. Barbara
McLeod