Michael Menser

Current Areas of Research:

Developmentalist approaches to evolutionary morphology and “constraints”; S. J. Gould’s conception of “spandrel” and his understanding of the historical, developmental, and adaptationist aspects of evolution; democratic theory, rights-based approaches to evaluating globalization; the anti-globalization movement; anarchism, bioregionalism as an alternative to nation-state-based global capitalism;

AOS:

Philosophy of Biology; Science and Technology Studies, Philosophy of Science

AOC:

Environmental Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Medical Ethics, Philosophy of Nature, Democratic Theory

EDUCATION

B. Phil. in Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics; B. A. in Philosophy; University of Pittsburgh, December 1990.

PhD, City University of New York, Graduate School and University Center, Philosophy, February 2003. Dissertation: “On the Evolutionary Significance of Developmental Constraints”

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Co-edited Technoscience and Cyberculture (1996) with Stanley Aronowitz and Barbara Martinsons, New York: Routledge. Spanish language edition published in 1998.

Papers Published

“The Politics of Assembly: Building an Urban Ecology from A16” (co-authored) Found Object #9, Fall 2000.

“Review Essay: Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment edited by Featherstone and Burrows and Cultures of Internet. Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies. (1996) Edited by Shields et al. in The Psychohistory Review, V 27, #2, Winter 1999.

“We Still Do Not Know What a Building Can Do,” (1997) in Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction. New York: Princeton University Press.

“On Cultural Studies, Science, and Technology” with Stanley Aronowitz, in Technoscience and Cyberculture (1996)

“Becoming-Heterarch: On Technocultural Theory, Minor Science, and the Production of Space” in Technoscience and Cyberculture (1996)

“Exploring the Possibility of Dasein’s Original Multiplicity in Being and Time,” Conference: a journal of philosophy and theory, vol. 4, #2, Fall 1993.

Papers Presented and Panels Participated
“Philosophy, Democracy, and the Social Forum Movement,” paper presented at Brooklyn College Faculty Day, May 21, 2003.

“Bioregionalism,” paper presented at Wagner College, April 24th, 2003 as a part of their “Green Festival.”

Chair of Panel, “New York City and the World,” 2nd Annual Natural, Ecology, Society Colloquium, CUNY GSUC, March 7th 2003.

“Explaining Change and Stasis in Kingdom Animalia,” Delivered at the annual meeting of the Philosophy of Developmental Biology Society, at UT-Austin, April 6th, 2002;

“The Politics of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.” Presented to the Brooklyn College Philosophy Society, May 7th, 2001.

“Anarchist Political Philosophy: Historical Figures and Contemporary Politics.” Presented to the Brooklyn College Philosophy Society, Nov 15th, 2000.

“Spinoza and Deep Ecology,” delivered at the conference “Shaping Conflicts,” for the panel Ecology and Environmentalism (Spring 1998: CUNY-GSUC).

“On the Nature of Human Bodies: From Gene Machines To Cyborgs--A Selective Philosophical Inquiry into the Physicality of Personhood.” Presented to the Brooklyn College Philosophy Society, October 27th, 1999.

Works in Progress.
“On the Significance of the Developmental Constraints Concept for Contemporary Evolutionary Theory.”

“Gould’s ‘Cross-Level’ Spandrels: a (Profitable?) Paradox for