Lewis Gordon

I earned my doctorate in philosophy at Yale University. Before that, I had taught in New York City, where I founded the Second Change Program, a special program for in-school truants, at Lehman High School.  My B.A. was achieved with honors and Phi Beta Kappa (Chi chapter) through the Lehman Scholars Program at Lehman College of the City University of New York.  

Before joining Temple’s faculty, I taught at Brown University, where I co-founded, as the first Chairperson, the Department of Africana Studies, and I taught in the Department of Modern Culture and Media and the Committee on Contemporary Religious Thought.  Prior to Brown, I also taught at Purdue University and Yale University.  And I am an on-going visiting professor at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica.  

I have been teaching at Temple University since 2004.  My academic interests are many, but they all focus on the difficulty of studying the human world and what it means to be human.  My courses reflect that interest: Philosophy of Culture, Black Existentialism, Religious Existentialism, Themes in Existentialism, Recent Africana Political Thought, Contemporary African Philosophy, Frantz Fanon, Foucault in Africana Thought, and the Proseminar in Twentieth Century Philosophy.  I also plan to teach, in the 2009-2010 academic year, Rastafari: Philosophy, Politics, and Theology.  

The Honors students are on a par with the top students I have encountered at other institutions. I appreciate their thoughtfulness in discussions, and I am delighted by their broad range of experience.   What makes the program special is the unique and dedicated mentorship offered by Ruth Ost and the fine caliber of students.  Ost understands that good learning today is less an issue of subject matter and more one of who is teaching the course.  She listens to her students and encourages them to work closely and regularly with faculty who stimulate their intellectual growth.  The fellowship fostered by the program, where students from different majors meet each other in a series of courses and continue discussions over the years, is definitely an advantage.

Outside of academia, my joy is my wife and four children. I am also a musician.  My instruments are the multi-percussive instrument (drums) and piano.  I've played for bands and orchestras, and the former included an alternative rock’n’roll band called No Boundaries, although I mostly played with jazz ensembles.  

In addition, I have acted in an off-broadway play, Athol Fugard’s The Island (I played John). And I love to cook.  (The students who have come to my home for Friday night dinners already know that.)