Todd May

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Todd May
Born
Todd Gifford May

(1955-05-13) May 13, 1955 (age 69)
New York City, New York
Alma mater Penn State University
Era 21st-century philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Continental
Institutions Clemson University
Thesis Psychology, Knowledge, Politics: The Epistemic Grounds of Michel Foucault's Genealogy of Psychology  (1989)
Doctoral advisor Alphonso Lingis
Main interests
 Political philosophy
Notable ideas
 Post-structuralist anarchism

Todd Gifford May [1] [2] (born May 13, 1955) is a political philosopher who writes on topics of anarchism, poststructuralism, and post-structuralist anarchism. More recently he has published books on existentialism and moral philosophy.

Contents

Career

In 1989, May received a doctorate at Pennsylvania State University in continental philosophy. [3] May has been teaching moral and political philosophy for over thirty years, beginning as a graduate instructor at Penn State before becoming a visiting assistant professor at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. [1] [2] May taught at Clemson from 1991 to 2022, where he served as the Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of Philosophy. [4] [2] Since 2022, he has been a lecturer in philosophy at Warren Wilson College. [5] [2] May also teaches philosophy to incarcerated people. [6]

Art academic Allan Antliff described May's 1994 The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism as "seminal,” and he credited the book with introducing "post-structuralist anarchism,” later abbreviated as "post-anarchism.” [7] May has published works on major poststructuralist philosophers, including Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault. [8] [9] He also wrote books on more general topics accessible to the general reader, including Death, [10] Our Practices, Our Selves, or, What It Means to Be Human, [11] Friendship in an Age of Economics: Resisting the Forces of Neoliberalism, [12] A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe, [13] A Fragile Life: Accepting Our Vulnerability. [14]

May, along with Pamela Hieronymi, was a philosophical advisor to the NBC television show The Good Place . [15] They both had cameos in the final episode. [16]

Personal life

May has three children, the youngest of whom majored in philosophy at university. [6]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 May, Todd Gifford (2016). "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Clemson University. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 8, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 May, Todd Gifford (March 2023). "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Warren Wilson College. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 15, 2024. Retrieved December 10, 2024.
  3. ↑ "College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities | Faculty Bio". www.clemson.edu. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  4. ↑ Bieber, Matt (February 16, 2023). "Todd May". The Believer. Archived from the original on January 8, 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Todd May". Warren Wilson College. Archived from the original on June 8, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  6. 1 2 "The Philosopher Behind 'The Good Place' Explains How To Raise Good Kids". Fatherly. January 18, 2019. Archived from the original on September 2, 2021. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  7. ↑ Antliff, Allan (2007). "Anarchy, Power, and Poststructuralism". SubStance. 36 (2, issue 113: The Future of Anarchism): 56–66. doi:10.1353/sub.2007.0026. JSTOR   25195125. S2CID   146156609.
  8. ↑ Pearson, Keith Ansell (June 2005). "Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  9. ↑ Anthony A. Defalco (August 14, 2008). "A Review of "Philosophy of Foucault (European Philosophy Series)". Educational Studies. 44: 77–82. doi:10.1080/00131940802225119. S2CID   218508263.
  10. ↑ Cave, Stephen (September 12, 2009). "Better late than never". Financial Times. Archived from the original on October 27, 2019. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  11. ↑ Fillion, Réal (April 1, 2010). "Our Practices, Our Selves, or, What It Means to Be Human". Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review. 42 (1): 150–153. doi:10.1017/S0012217300004273. S2CID   170352140.
  12. ↑ Weiskopf, Richard. "Friendship and counter-conduct in the neoliberal regime of truth". Ephemera. 13 (3): 683–693. Archived from the original on January 5, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  13. ↑ Metz, Thaddeus (August 19, 2015). "A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
  14. ↑ Zaretsky, Robert (October 10, 2017). "Matters Large and Small: Reading Todd May's "A Fragile Life" in the Wake of Hurricane Harvey". Los Angeles Reviews of Books. Archived from the original on November 26, 2020. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  15. ↑ "Philosophy on TV: "The Good Place"". Blog of the APA. June 21, 2017. Archived from the original on January 31, 2018. Retrieved January 11, 2018.
  16. ↑ VanDerWerff, Emily (January 31, 2020). "The Good Place was groundbreaking TV. Did its finale measure up?". Vox. Archived from the original on February 1, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2020.
  17. ↑ Widmer, Kingsley (1996). "Notes on Some Recent Anarchisms". Social Anarchism (21): 88–97. ISSN   0196-4801.

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