The Department of Philosophy is proud to announce Professor Shelley Weinberg has been named acting director of the Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory, a lab for experiments in theory and interdisciplinarity across the humanities, social sciences, arts, and sciences. The Unit develops and explores new research fields like critical technology studies and new materialism; revises dominant theoretical paradigms like Marxism and feminism; and tests new modes of interdisciplinarity in responding to contemporary problems like unpayable debt, climate change, neoliberalism, and systemic racism. 

Weinberg is Associate Professor of Philosophy and a past member of the Research Advising and Project Development team in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation—Humanities, Arts, and Related Fields and the Odyssey Project faculty in the Humanities Research Institute. Her research focuses on 17th and 18th century philosophical psychology, early modern religious epistemology, and metaphysics with special emphasis on the work of John Locke. Her book, “Consciousness in Locke” (Oxford University Press 2016), was awarded the Journal of the History of Philosophy’s prize for the best book in the history of philosophy published in 2016. Her most recent book, a co-edited volume called “The Lockean Mind” (Routledge 2021), is a comprehensive survey of Locke’s work that not only places it in its historical context but also explores its contemporary significance.