King's Professor Antonio Calcagno named Member of The Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – September 22, 2015

London, ON- King’s University College congratulates Dr. Antonio Calcagno, elected as a Member to the prestigious Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, in recognition of his research as an emerging, young, scholar. The Royal Society of Canada is the highest recognized body of scholars in Arts, Humanities and Sciences in our country.

Dr. Calcagno is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at King’s. He explores the relation between consciousness and social and political objectivities. His work focuses on how the mind conditions bonds in groups, communities and states. Dr. Calcagno is an internationally recognized specialist in the philosophy of Edith Stein and early phenomenology. As a scholar and translator, he helps disseminate the continental tradition of philosophy to English-speaking audiences.

Dr. Calcagno is a first-generation university graduate whose growing international reputation is evident through his publications and research presentations in North America, Europe, Chile, Mexico and Australia. Previously, he was the editor of Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale (2007–2012). In 2009, Dr. Calcagno was nominated for TVO’s Best Lecturer competition. In 2011, Dr. Calcagno was recognized for his classroom work by winning the King’s University College Award for Excellence in Teaching. At King’s, he co-founded the Centre for Advanced Research in European Philosophy (CAREP).

“Dr. Antonio Calcagno represents the very best in our profession. He is an inspiring teacher, a remarkably productive and relevant researcher, and the finest of colleagues. An ambassador of academic excellence in the liberal arts, Professor Calcagno continually challenges his students to seek the deeper purposes of a university education. He is, indeed, a true gentleman and scholar,” says Dr. David Sylvester, King’s Principal.

King’s salutes Dr. Calcagno in this one-minute highlight video of his research:

In his two monographs, The Philosophy of Edith Stein (2007), now in second printing and chosen by the American Association of University Presses/American Library Association for 2008 university press books selected for public and secondary school libraries, and Lived Experience from the Inside Out: The Social and Political Philosophy of Edith Stein (2014), Dr. Calcagno convincingly demonstrates that Stein not only developed her own phenomenological method, making an important contribution to the development of the method in general, but that Stein was the first phenomenological thinker to provide a social and political ontology that is of great importance for contemporary debates in social ontology found in the work of John Searle and Raimo Tuomela. Dr. Calcagno extends Stein’s project by developing his own account of how the phenomenal mind (and not only the brain) provides important structures, especially in terms of meaning. Furthermore, by highlighting the contributions of Stein, and her fellow female phenomenologists, including Gerda Walther and Hedwig Conrad-Martius, he continues to challenge the established canon of phenomenology and early 20th century philosophy, which has largely excluded these founding women philosophers.

His book, Badiou and Derrida: Politics Events and their Time (2007), was the first major scholarly work on Badiou’s political philosophy in English and Calcagno’s text helped English readers become familiar with Badiou’s philosophical system. Professor Calcagno has also written on and translated major contemporary figures in contemporary Italian political philosophy, including Luigi Pareyson and Roberto Esposito.

His new edited volume on Contemporary Italian Political Philosophy (2015) brings together essays on leading Italian political philosophers, including Robert Esposito, Adriana Cavarero, Paolo Virno, Antonio Negri, and Luce Fabbri, who all offer alternatives to the dominant contemporary Liberal economic paradigm of politics.

Dr. Calcagno will be inducted as a Royal Society College Member in Victoria, B.C. in November.

King's is a publicly-funded Catholic post-secondary institution founded in 1954. King’s provides general and honors degree programs in the liberal arts, social sciences, business, and a master's degree in social work. Institutionally-autonomous, King’s is academically-affiliated with Western University. King’s is open to students of all faith backgrounds, with its community centered on the principles of social justice and the education of the whole person.

For more information please contact:
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King’s University College
communications@kings.uwo.ca
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www.kings.uwo.ca