Dr. Adam J Graves, Class of 2001

I received my B.A. (UPenn) in South Asia Studies (with a concentration in the religious traditions of India and Sanskrit studies) in 2001. I conducted original research in India and wrote my thesis on on Utpaladeva, a tenth-century Hindu philosopher of the Pratyabhijna school of Shaiva philosophy, under the supervision of Wilhelm Halbfass, one of the most accomplished scholars of Indian philosophy. My Ph.D. (UPenn, 2007) is in Religious Studies (with a concentration on Modern Religious Thought and Philosophy of Religion). I wrote my dissertation on the role of intersection of religious and philosophical thought in the work of three important twentieth-century philosophers: Heidegger, Marion and Ricoeur. I am currently elected an officer in the Society for Ricoeur Studies. 

I enjoy teaching a range of subject within philosophy (ethics, phenomenology, existentialism, history of modern philosophy) and the field of religious studies (introduction to western and eastern religions, the history of Christian thought, religion and culture, etc.).  

Modern European philosophy of religion, with particular interest in phenomenological philosophy (Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, and Marion); the development of hermeneutic theory from Schleiermacher to Gadamer, Ricoeur and Vattimo; methodological issues in the study of religion; sociological and philosophical accounts of secularization; the theological and philosophical sources of modern theories of autonomy.