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Marilyn Piety Foley

Marilyn Gaye Piety, PhD

Professor of Philosophy
Department of English and Philosophy
Office: 5016 MacAlister
mgpiety@drexel.edu

Additional Sites:

mgpiety.org
pietyonkierkegaard.com
flashphilosophy.com


Education:

  • PhD, Philosophy, McGill University, 1995
  • MA, Philosophy, Bryn Mawr College, 1987
  • BA, Philosophy, Earlham College, 1984

Curriculum Vitae:

Download (PDF)

Research Interests:

  • Kierkegaard
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Ancient Philosophy
  • Public Philosophy
  • Flash Philosophy
  • Social Justice
  • Philosophy of Sport

Bio:

M.G. Piety came to Drexel in 1998 from Denmark where she had moved in 1990 after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship to complete the work on her dissertation, and where she taught courses on Kierkegaard and the history of European philosophy for Denmark’s International Study Program, then a branch of the University of Copenhagen. Piety is an internationally recognized expert on the work of Søren Kierkegaard. She is the author of Ways of Knowing: Kierkegaard’s Pluralist Epistemology (Baylor, 2010) and the translator of Søren Kierkegaard’s Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs (Oxford, 2009). Her other interests include ancient philosophy, ethics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of sport. Piety is the author of Sequins and Scandals: Reflections on Figure Skating, Culture, and the Philosophy of Sport (Gegensatz Press, 2014), and of numerous articles in both popular and scholarly journals, including the Dublin Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.

Piety is a passionate campaigner for social justice. Before going to graduate school, Piety worked as a canvasser for The Pennsylvania Public Interest Coalition, a citizen lobby group. Since going into teaching, she has been a frequent contributor to the online political journal Counterpunch. She considers her teaching to be part of her campaign for social justice in that she aims to develop in her students the critical and analytical skills they will need to defend their views against the attacks of those who would attempt to discredit them. Piety is also a proponent of the therapeutic value of philosophy. She is a certified philosophical counselor, and a member of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. She maintains three blogs: The Life of the Mind, Flash Philosophy, and Piety on Kierkegaard. More information about Piety is available on her website: mgpiety.org.

Selected Publications:

Books

Articles:

  • “The Problem of the Intermediary: On the Compatibility of Psychoanalytic Theory and Religion,” International Journal on Humanistic Ideology, Vol. XI, No. 2, 2021
  • “Diversity and False Dichotomies at Smith College,” Counterpunch, 17 March 2021. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/17/diversity-and-false-dichotomies-at-smith-college/
  • “Kierkegaard, the Caricature or the Man,” Dublin Review of Books, January 1, 2020.
  • “Alone for dinner, Kierkegaard’s sombre outlook,” Times Literary Supplement, October 4, 2019.
  • “The Promise of Liberal Theology,” Liberal Theology Today, eds. Jörg Lauster, Ulrich Schmiedel, and Peter Schüz,  Mohr Siebeck, 2019.
  • “On Biblical Inerrancy: Some Reflections for United Methodists and other ‘Christians’,” Counterpunch. 11 March 2019. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/11/on-biblical-inerrancy-some-reflections-for-united-methodists-and-other-christians/
  • “Kierkegaard the Humorist,” Authorship and Authority in Kierkegaard’s Writings, eds. Joseph Westfall and Mark Tietjen. Bloomsbury, 2018.
  • "Kierkegaard," The Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology, eds. William J. Abraham and Frederick D. Aquino. Oxford University Press, 2017.
  • “Kierkegaard and the Early Church on Christian Knowledge and its Existential Implications,” Kierkegaard’s God and the Good Life. Eds. Stephen Minister, J. Aaron Simmons, and Michael Strawser, Indiana University Press, 2017.
  • “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Charles Murray?” Counterpunch. 7 March 2017. http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/07/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-charles-murray/
  • “The Fullness of Faith,” Love, Reason, and Will: Kierkegaard After Frankfurt. Eds. John Davenport and Anthony Rudd. Bloomsbury, 2015.>
  • “The Talking Cure: Conversations with Women,” Women in Philosophical Counseling The Anima of Thought in Action, eds. Luisa de Paula and Peter Raabe. Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.