The landscape has changed in the last couple of years for Anglophone students who want to get a solid philosophy education and be able to study the post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy. Columbia University, long a top choice for Anglophone students, is no longer one: Frederick Neuhouser (Hegel, German Idealism) has retired, and Robert Gooding-Williams (Nietzsche) left for Yale. (Taylor Carman [phenomenology & existentialism] remains at Barnard/Columbia, but he does not appear to work with many PhD students. Axel Honneth is in his 70s and half-time. Neuhouser was the mainstay of supervision at Columbia.) Robert Pippin (Kant, Hegel, German Idealism) is no longer taking PhD students in philosophy at the University of Chicago (and is in his late 70s), Arnold Davidson (Foucault) has retired, and Daniel Brudney (Marx) has entered phased retirement (ending in 2029). Maudemarie Clark (Nietzsche) and Pierre Keller (Kant, German Idealism, phenomenology) have retired at the University of California at Riverside.
Here are what seem to me the best choices–in terms of breadth and depth of coverage–among the Anglophone world top 25 programs:
Harvard University: Harvard now has a large group of faculty and cognate faculty interested in post-Kantian European philosophy, including Peter Gordon (Frankfurt School), Sean Kelly (phenomenology & existentialism), Samantha Matherne (Kant & German Idealism, NeoKantianism, phenomenology), Richard Moran (Sartre), Mathias Risse (Nietzsche), Michael Rosen (Hegel, Marx, Frankfurt School), Tommie Shelby (Marx). There have not been a lot of PhD graduates in these areas yet, but there have been some.
New York University: Key faculty are Anja Jauering (Kant, German Idealism), Michelle Kosch (German Idealism, Kiekegaard), and John Richardson (Nietzsche, Heidegger). The center of gravity at NYU is clearly in the latest fads in Anglophone “analytic” philosophy, but the department has now graduated some serious students working on post-Kantian philosophy.
Oxford University: strong coverage of phenomenology & existentialism (Kate Kirkpatrick, Katherine Morris, Stephen Mulhall, Joseph Schear, Mark Wrathall) and Nietzsche (Peter Kail, Alexander Prescott-Couch), with cognate faculty prominent in Marx studies (David Leopold). Oxford, like NYU, has its center of gravity elsewhere, but with so many capable scholars, the opportunity is there for a student interested in the post-Kantian traditions.
University of California, San Diego: three tenured faculty working in and around the post-Kantian traditions: Michael Hardimon (esp. Hegel), Clinton Tolley (Kant, German Idealism, phenomenology), and Eric Watkins (Kant, German Idealism, German Romanticism).
University of Chicago: despite the changes noted at the start, there is still a sizable contingent of faculty and cognate faculty interested in post-Kantian European philosophy, including Matt Boyle (Kant, German Idealism), James Conant (Kant, German Idealism, Nietzsche), Anton Ford (Marx), Mathias Haase (German Idealism), Maya Krishnan (Kant, German Idealism), Brian Leiter (Marx, Nietzsche), Thomas Pendlebury (Kant, German Idealism), and, part-time, Michael Forster (Herder, Hegel, German Romanticism, Nietzsche).
University of Toronto: tenured and tenure-track faculty doing work in the post-Kantian traditions include Tarek Dika (phenomenology), Willi Goetschel (Frankfurt School), Nick Stang (esp. Hegel), and Owen Ware (Fichte, German Romanticism), among others.
Yale University: two tenured faculty interested in 19th-century Continental philosophy, Paul Franks (Hegel & German Idealism) and Robert Gooding-Williams (Nietzsche), and one tenure-track faculty member working in both 19th- and 20th-century Continental philosophy, Jake McNulty (esp. Hegel, Frankfurt School).
Some good schools, while not having broad coverage, have one or two faculty interested in post-Kantian figures: e.g., Berkeley (Andreja Novakovic [Hegel]), Brown (Bernard Reginster [Nietzsche, Sartre]), Stanford University (Lanier Anderson, Nadeem Hussain [both Nietzsche]), University of Notre Dame (Andrew Huddleston [Nietzsche, Adorno], Fred Rush [Hegel, Frankfurt School]), CUNY Graduate Center (Linda Alcoff [Foucault], Sandra Shapshay [Schopenhauer]), Johns Hopkins (Yitzhak Melamed [Hegel], Katharina Kraus [Kant, NeoKantianism, Lebensphilosophie], Dean Moyar [Hegel & German Idealism]), University of Pittsburgh (Robert Brandom [Hegel], Michael Thompson [Marx]). I think Notre Dame is probably the top choice among these programs.
Outside the top 25, but still ranked in their regions of the world (e.g., top 50 in the US, top 15 in the UK etc.):
Boston University: Several tenured faculty work on post-Kantian figures and movements, including Daniel Dahlstrom (phenomenology, esp. Heidegger), Paul Katsafanas (Nietzsche), Sally Sedgwick (Hegel), and C. Allen Speight (Hegel, German Idealism).
Georgetown University: a strong choice for those interested in Heidegger, with two tenured faculty in the area: William Blattner and Katherine Withy.
Northwestern University: six tenured or tenure-track faculty work in 19th-century (Mark Alznauer [esp. Hegel], Pascal Brixel [esp. Marx], Claire Kirwin [esp. Nietzsche], Rachel Zuckert [esp. Kant and German Idealism]) and 20th-century (Penelope Deutscher, Cristina LaFont) Continental philosophy. Within the “analytic” tradition, the program is especially strong in epistemology, and also prominent in philosophy of race. For students with a primary interest in post-Kantian philosophy, I would treat Northwestern as competitive with Harvard, Oxford, Chicago et al.
University of Warwick: a large contingent in philosophy working on figures and movements in the post-Kantian Continental traditions, including David Bather-Woods (esp. Schopenhauer), Stephen Houlgate (Hegel, German Idealism), David James (German Idealism), Tobias Keiling (phenomenology, hermeneutics), Eliza Little (Hegel, existentialism), and Timothy Stoll (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, German Romanticism). The department is strong in several areas of analytic philosophy, especially aesthetics and philosophy of mind.
Once again, several schools, while not having broad coverage, have one or two good faculty interested in post-Kantian figures: e.g., University of Sydney (Dalia Nassar [German Romanticism]), University of Pennsylvania (Daniele Lorenzini [Foucault] (tenured), Sabina Bremner [Kant, post-Kantian European philosophy] (untenured)).




Leave a Reply