Riley Scholar in Residence
in Religion and Philosophy
Ph.D., University of Missouri, 2006
office telephone: 719/227-8199
email: cdawson@coloradocollege.edu
Courses Taught:
PH 140 Introduction to Ethics
PH 285 Philosophy and Race
RE 291 Black Religion in America
Dissertation Abstract:
A Philosophical Analysis of Four Concepts of Race
This project is a philosophical analysis of the dominant concepts of race that prevail within contemporary American society. It is the claim of this dissertation that four main concepts attempt to answer the question: what is race? The four concepts are: racial essentialism, race as a social construct with objective status, racial nihilism, and race as an existential/phenomenological process. Each concept fails, however, in providing the necessary and sufficient conditions for a satisfactory concept of race, and thus, the dissertation calls for a new conceptual framework for answering the question: what is race?
Areas of Specialization:
Social and Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Culture and Race, African American Philosophy
Areas of Competence: Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, Applied Ethics (Business and Medical), History of Philosophy, Existentialism, African American Religion
Selected Presentations:
Reformed Epistemology Revisited, Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa, March, 1989; Hush, Somebody Is Calling My Name: An Analysis of African American Philosophical Theology, Regional Meeting, Society of Christian Philosophers, Boulder, CO., October, 2001; Standing at the Portal: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and Second Generational Black Liberation Theology, Department of Theology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO. February, 2002; Foundations of the Black Church, African American Institute, Jefferson City, MO, 2003; Philosophical Reflections on Race and The Metaphysics of Liberation Theology, Roots of Racism Conference II, Missouri School of Religion, Jefferson City, MO, August, 2004; Four Concepts of Race and Black Nihilism, Roots of Racism III, Missouri School of Religion, Jefferson City, MO, August, 2005; Ontological Blackness Revisited: A Philosophical Examination of Victor Anderson’s Beyond Ontological Blackness, Rocky Mountain-Great Plains American Academy of Religion Regional Meeting, March 24-25, 2006, Colorado Springs, CO; When the House is on Fire: Finding Hope in the Midst of Democratic Despair and panel chair, Seventh Biennial National and International Conference of the Radical Philosophy Association, Creighton University, November 2-5, 2006.