About Matthew Dasti

Matthew R. Dasti is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bridgewater State University.

8 Replies to “Congratulations to Malcolm Keating”

  1. Thanks, Matt. I’m very excited about the opportunity. One of the first things to note is that there is actually not a “Department of Philosophy” at Yale-NUS, but I will be part of, and was hired by, the Humanities Division (http://www.yale-nus.edu.sg/about/faculty/). This is important because the College is emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach to education in which faculty members are encouraged (and expected) to work with people outside of their specializations. I’ll be joining colleagues whose work I already know and admire (and the names of some should be familiar to readers of this blog: Jay Garfield and Amber Carpenter are both there, along with many others) and getting to meet others from whom I have a lot to learn.

    So, to summarize: Yale-NUS is a new liberal arts college (the first in Singapore) which is a collaboration between Yale and the National University of Singapore. The student body and faculty are very international and the curriculum emphasizes core classes (the Common Curriculum) such as Philosophy and Political Thought (PPT – http://www.yale-nus.edu.sg/curriculum/common-curriculum/philosophy-and-political-thought/) in which philosophy is taught from the beginning as a global practice, not primarily the domain of European thinkers.

    I’ll be teaching courses like PPT and others in my areas of expertise (Indian philosophy, philosophy of language) and, since the College is new, I will be actively involved in shaping the curriculum–there are currently two cohorts in attendance, and I’ll be arriving in Fall 2015 with the third incoming class of undergraduates. Part of the curriculum is a Week Seven program which is an interdisciplinary, collaborative “laboratory” in which students take a week from the traditional classroom setting and travel to learn on-site. For example, Nico Silins worked with Navid Ladha to take students to Shenzhen where they looked at forgeries and thought about Nozick’s “experience machine” and authenticity and art (http://cipe.yale-nus.edu.sg/co-curricular-programs/week-7/2014-2/authenticity/).

    I could go on, as I’m very excited, but this should give you a flavor of the institution and its aims.

    • I was confused by the titles, thanks for the clarification. So people are in the Humanities Division, but are “Philosophy Faculty”? I am editing the initial post, but with a note.

      • Matt, yes, that’s right. If you look at the faculty page you’ll see “Humanities (Philosophy)” or “Humanities (Literature)” etc.

  2. Congratulations to Malcolm! It sounds like a great opportunity. Hopefully there will be a conference at some point so we can all come to Singapore to see how the program is going!

  3. Wow, exciting working atmosphere and excellent colleagues! Congratulations and good luck for the time you will spend there shaping the college —hopefully you will manage to help creating something more akin to the institute of cosmopolitan thought Ganeri was dreaming of.
    Last, let me subscribe to Ethan’s wish that there will be a chance to visit you there.

  4. Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone. I think that people are correct to see similarities to Ganeri’s cosmopolitan vision. The official slogan of the university is “A community of learning, founded by two great universities, in Asia, for the world,” after all. Also, let me add that I, too, hope there will be occasions for people to visit.

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