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College of Arts and Humanities

Carolyn Cusick

Associate Professor

Philosophy | 559.278.0331 | Office: Music 103

ccusick@csufresno.edu

Education

  • PhD, Philosophy, Vanderbilt University 
  • MA, Philosophy, Lewis University 
  • BA, Philosophy & Certificate in Women's Studies, Saint Louis University

Courses Taught

  • Foundations of Knowledge
  • Senior Seminar: Epistemologies of Resistance 
  • Feminist Philosophy 
  • Philosophy and Race 
  • Social and Political Philosophy
  • Issues in Political Philosophy: Identity Politics 
  • Issues in Political Philosophy: Decolonization 
  • Issues in Political Philosophy: Tolerance, Hospitality, Listening 
  • Senior Seminar: Philosophy of Education 
  • Philosophy of Language  
  • Methods of Reason 
  • Introduction to Philosophy

I have philosophical specialties in epistemology and social/political philosophy, with emphasis on feminist philosophy and philosophy of race. Most of my research is about the role of listening in epistemic justice. I challenge the near exclusive focus on speech as the locus of democratic action and on measuring democratic participation through the inclusion of more voices. I advocate for a shift in terminology that reinforces attention on communicative activities of persons speaking and listening to help refocus on the whole of communication, but this requires also attending especially to the epistemic and ethical responsibilities on the listening side of communicating. This involves understanding and advocating the epistemic aims of education; exploring the relationship between listening, tolerance, and hospitality; and researching sexual communication.

Articles:

  • “Testifying Bodies: Testimonial Injustice as Derivatization” in Social Epistemology 33 (2), 2019
  • “Listening to Fanonian Humanism” in a special issue on the Humanism of Frantz Fanon for Listening: A Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture, Winter 2015
  • “The Last Straw Fallacy: Another Causal Fallacy and its Harmful Effects” (with Mark Peter) Argumentation, 29 (4) 2015 (online first 16 Nov 2014)
  • “Anna Julia Cooper, Worth, and Public Intellectuals,” Philosophia Africana, 12 (1) 2009
  • “Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks on Race Consciousness,” Ameriquests, 3 (3) 2006, https://ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/index.php/ameriquests/article/view/45
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  • “A Phenomenological Investigation of Aspects of Advertising,” Glimpse, 3 (1) 2001

 

Book Chapters:

  • “Introduction” (with Michael R. Paradiso-Michau) Neither Victim Nor Survivor: Thinking Toward a New Humanity, by Marilyn Nissim-Sabat (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2009)
  • “The Problem of Psychology and Public Service Advertising,” Phenomenology 2005 (vol. 5): Selected Essays from North America, edited by Lester E. Embree and Thomas Nenon (Romania and zetabooks.com: Zeta Books, 2008)
  • “Revolutionary Inclusion in Philosophy,” Shifting the Geography of Reason: Proceedings of the 1st Annual Meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association, edited by Marina P. Banchetti-Robino and Clevis R. Headley (London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006)