Eleanor Helms
Professor
Contact Information
- Office: Bldg. 47, Rm. 34E
- Phone: 805-756-7295
- Email: ehelmszo@calpoly.edu
Education
- Ph.D., Philosophy, Fordham University (2011)
- M.A., Philosophy, Fordham University
- B.A. Philosophy, Wheaton College
Professional Interests
- 19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy
- Aesthetics (especially Philosophy of Literature)
- Applied Ethics (especially Environmental Philosophy)
- History of Philosophy
Courses Taught
- PHIL 230: Philosophical Classics: Knowledge and Reality
- PHIL 312: Medieval Philosophy
- PHIL 316: 20th Century Philosophy
- PHIL 319: Existentialism
- PHIL 350: Aesthetics
- PHIL 351: Philosophy of Literature
- PHIL 369: Postmodernism
- PHIL 429: Special Topics: Kant's Critique of Judgment & Kierkegaard
Awards
Res Philosophica Journal 2013 Essay Competition (First Place)
Grants
Cal Poly, College of Liberal Arts, Summer Research Grant ($6000), 2017
Publications
Peer-Reviewd Articles:
“On Climacus’s ‘Against Reason Thesis’”: A Challenge to Westphal,” Faith and Philosophy (October 2017, forthcoming) (co-authored article) “Heidegger’s Critique of Technology and the Contemporary Return to Artisan Business Activity,” Eleanor Helms (first author) and John Dobson, Philosophy of Management (Online First, January 2016).
“Closed Drawers and Hidden Faces: Arendt’s Kantian Defense of Fictional Worlds,” Philosophy and Literature 39: 1A (September 2015), 16-31. (co-authored article) “Heroic Business ‘Ethics,’” John Dobson and Eleanor Helms, Business and Professional Ethics Journal 33: 2/3 (2014), 131-146.
“The Objectivity of Faith: Kierkegaard’s Critique of Fideism,” Res Philosophica 90:4 (October 2013), 439-460.
“Language and Responsibility: The Possibilities and Problems of Poetic Thinking for Environmental Philosophy,” Environmental Philosophy 5:1 (Spring 2008), 23-36.
Book Chapters:
“Imagination and Belief in Kierkegaard,” in The Kierkegaardian Mind, eds. Patrick Stokes, and Adam Buben, Eleanor Helms (Routledge, forthcoming 2019).
“Kierkegaard on the Art of Storytelling,” in Kierkegaard as Author, ed. Jeffrey Hanson (Lexington, forthcoming 2018).
“The End in the Beginning: Eschatology in Kierkegaard’s Literary Criticism,” in Narrative, Identity, and the Kierkegaardian Self, eds. John Lippitt and Patrick Stokes (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).
“Can Kierkegaard be Serious? A Phenomenological Point of View for Kierkegaard’s Authorship,” in International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Point of View, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010), 238-267.
“The Difficult Task of Being Real: Odradek, the Kittenlamb, and the Historical Individual,” in Kafka’s Creatures: Animals, Hybrids, and Other Fantastic Beings, eds. Marc Lucht and Donna Yarri (New York: Rowan and Littlefield, 2010).
Presentations
“Kierkegaard and the Structure of Imagination,” Søren Kierkegaard Research Conference, Søren Kierkegaard Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 16-18, 2017.
“Keep Folding, Everyone: Implications of Husserl’s Threefold ‘Seeing-In’ for Twofoldness and Trompe-l’Oeil,” American Society for Aesthetics, Pacific Division, Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, April 5-7, 2017.
“Hope and the Chaos of Imagination in Kant and Kierkegaard, Joint Meeting of the Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Group and Society of Christian Philosophers, American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX, November 20, 2016.
“Have Faith in Reason: A Challenge to Westphal with Fear and Trembling,” Author Meets Critics (Westphal, Kierkegaard’s Concept of Faith, 2014), Soren Kierkegaard Society, American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX, November 19, 2016.
“Play It Again: Perceiving a Work of Art as One Thing in Kierkegaard and Merleau-Ponty,” Kierkegaard Society Meeting at the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), Eugene, OR Oct 24-26, 2013.
“The End in the Beginning: Eschatology in Kierkegaard’s Literary Criticism,” 7th International Kierkegaard Conference (SKS), St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN June 23-27, 2013.
“Kant and Husserl on the Object’s True Self: The Question of Teleology and Determinability,” Seminar in Phenomenology and the History of Philosophy (SIPHOP), South Bend, IN Sept 2012.
“Husserl’s Aesthetics: A Phenomenology of the Literary Work of Art,” American Philosophical Association (APA) - Eastern Division, Washington, D.C. Dec 2011.
Service
Soren Kierkegaard Society Representative to the American Philosophical Association
Co-editor for The Kierkegaardian Mind (Routledge handbook series)
Affilitations
Soren Kierkegaard Society, American Society for Aesthetics