Brian Schroeder Headshot

Brian Schroeder

Professor

Department of Philosophy
College of Liberal Arts

585-475-6346
Office Location
Office Mailing Address
Department of Philosophy Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY 14623

Brian Schroeder

Professor

Department of Philosophy
College of Liberal Arts

Education

BA, Edinboro College; M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary; MA, Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook

Bio

Brian Schroeder is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Religious Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology. He has published widely on Continental philosophy, the history of philosophy, environmental philosophy, East Asian philosophy, social and political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. He is co-editor of the SUNY Press Series in Contemporary Italian Philosophy and the SUNY Press Series in Transcontinental Philosophy. Currently he serves on the executive committees of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle and the Society for Italian Philosophy. He is formerly co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, co-director and chair of the board of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, director of the Collegium Phaenomenologicum, and executive committee member of the Nietzsche Society. For more information, including publications, please go to https://rit.academia.edu/sbs.

He is also a Soto Zen priest and Buddhist chaplain at RIT, where he guides the Idunno Zen Community. For more information, please go to https://vimeo.com/212931642/ad9f557d3b

Currently Teaching

PHIL-311
3 Credits
This course is an introduction to the origin and development of the philosophical traditions of primarily China and Japan through a consideration of selected thinkers, schools, and classic texts of Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Zen. Questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics are emphasized with reference to the nature of reality and the person, social harmony and self-realization, causality, right action, and enlightenment. Comparisons may also be made with Western philosophers, both contemporary and classical.
PHIL-401
3 Credits
An examination of the thought of some of those philosophers who have been most influential in the history of ideas. An attempt is made to cover in some depth the works of one or more of these great thinkers. The student will begin to recognize the enduring nature of some of our most pressing problems, as well as the intellectual foundation of proposed solutions. (Prerequisite: one course in philosophy, or permission of instructor) Class 3, Credit 3 (varies)
PHIL-417
3 Credits
This course will provide an overview of some of the major currents in Continental philosophy, the distinctive philosophical approach and style of thinking that emerges in the early 20th century largely as a critical response to German Idealism, Marxism, and the antecedent existentialism of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Continental philosophy is rooted in the history of philosophy, attentive to the world of experience, and develops in constant conversation with various other areas of human activities such as literature, politics, psychoanalysis, and religion. Among the major currents to be examined in the course are phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, structuralism, poststructuralism, French feminist theory, posthumanism, and speculative realism. Traditional philosophical topics such as ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, language analysis, feminist theory, ethics, and politics will be considered in the light of their reassessment by Continental philosophy. Figures covered may include Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Foucault, Levinas, Deleuze, Nancy, Derrida, Agamben, Irigaray, and Žižek, among others.
PHIL-449
3 Credits
A critical examination of issues in some area of philosophy not covered in other philosophy courses.

In the News

  • September 16, 2024

    photo of rochester at night with text that says society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy 62 annual meeting september 26-28, in rochester

    RIT-Hosted Conference Draws 600 Philosophers to Rochester

    The RIT Department of Philosophy will host the world’s largest meeting for continental philosophy later this month, drawing up to 600 people together from across the country and around the world for three days of thoughtful dialogue on some of today’s most complex ideas and issues.