Philosophy 895 Graduate Conference 2026

Bio: Tawnia Rose is graduating from San Francisco State University with an M.A. in Philosophy. She also earned her B.A. in Philosophy from San Francisco State University with minors in Art History and Cinema. Tawnia will next pursue a second M.A. in Cinema and Media studies here at SF State beginning Fall ’26.

Her research interests include Philosophy of Art, Aesthetics, Critical Theory, Film Theory, and Continental Philosophy. A lifelong learner, all of Tawnia’s academic interests are driven by a strong belief that tenacious questioning and endless inquiry are what matter most. She hopes to someday have the opportunity to teach a class which explores her areas of interest as well as incorporating the broad range of A.I. issues into ongoing philosophical discussions.

Exploring the Artistic vs. the Scientific View by way of Carl Jung’s Conception of the anima/us

This presentation considers what it means to approach Carl Jung’s theories from an artistic rather than a scientific viewpoint, focusing specifically on the potential insights that Jung’s conception of the anima/animus may provide. The inspiration for this shift stems from how Jung himself responded to the traditional charge that his psychotherapeutic school is a pseudo-science--a theory that does not follow scientific methods. Jung’s shift away from a scientific viewpoint towards one akin to "doing art" became his way of exploring the psyche in response to the inability of science to be able to tell the whole story of what it is to be human. The artistic viewpoint, Jung found, investigated the unconscious part of the psyche where dreams, fantasies, and imagination delve, offering valuable ways of understanding a more elusive, yet ultimately more complete picture, of the human mind. 

Bio: Wanyi Lyu is a graduate student pursuing an MA in PHIL at San Francisco State University. Born into a traditional Asian family, she spent a long period of her life navigating the complex interplay between love and resentment. Fortunately, her family eventually chose to grant her the opportunity to pursue her own personal values. From art history and musical studies to her current graduate work in the philosophy of love, she has been on a continuous quest to discover a point of equilibrium—a way to balance love, selfhood, and family. In the future, she hopes to mentor children who share her upbringing, offering them a sense of possibility as well as a broader range of directions and choices if possible.

Nature, Meaning, Significance, and Involvement of Ethical Issues in Love

This presentation reflects on two articles, one on artificial intelligence and the other on love. My thesis point is that love is not ethically neutral; rather it is a force that must be assessed within moral philosophy, gender politics, and contemporary cultural transformations. At the same time, we should think about what we should say when the scope of loving is extended beyond the human. Here arise issues about universal compassion and what kinds of emotions we should have toward artificial intelligences. This paper will unfold in multiple stages and the primary focus of the discussion revolves around the theme of love. At the end of the article, I raise several counterarguments along with my responses to them; therefore, during the discussion segment of the presentation, we will structure our conversation around these points.

Bio: Kimberly Gonzalez Vega is graduating with an M.A. in Philosophy from San Francisco State University. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from California State University, Sacramento, with a concentration in Politics, Ethics and Law. It is here where she developed an interest in the ethical theories of consciousness, debates in Philosophy of Mind and animal consciousness.

“Panpsychism and Animal Consciousness" is the exploration of the relationship between panpsychism and animal consciousness. The project aims to evaluate whether panpsychism provides a coherent explanatory framework for understanding the ethical implications of consciousness in non-human animals. By engaging with key debates in Philosophy of Mind (such as physicalist accounts and the combination problem), this thesis challenges physicalist accounts of consciousness through a panpsychist lens and proposes an alternative framework that takes a more ethical approach to consciousness in non-human animals.

Bio: Rebecca Herrera, a native of Lodi, earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is completing her Master of Arts in Philosophy, where she has developed a strong foundation in critical analysis, ethics, and analytical reasoning. Building on this academic background, Rebecca plans to attend law school, where she aims to specialize in sports and entertainment law and pursue a career advocating for clients in dynamic, high-profile industries.

Death and Incarceration 

This presentation will explain and explore Orlando Patterson’s notion of “social death,” focusing specifically on how it affects people post-incarceration. In addition to illustrating post-carceral social death, I also discuss different ways to diminish and combat social death. Thus, a central part of the presentation will also focus on Susan Fiske’s theory of social belonging. This important account helps understand the negative impact of social death for people as they try to rehabilitate into society as contributing members.

Bio: Eric Nyeste is a philosopher, writer, and educator whose work explores the intersection of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and ethics. Drawing on thinkers such as Heidegger, Lacan, Foucault, and Nietzsche, his research investigates how subjects come to inhabit their lives through practices of attention, embodiment, and care. With a background in hospitality and community-building, he is particularly interested in the everyday conditions through which meaning, desire, and relationality emerge. His current project develops a model of subjectivity as a dynamic interplay between being, becoming, and the limits that structure both, emphasizing lived practice over abstract resolution.

Resisting Stasis: Embodied Pedagogy for a Technocratic Age

This presentation explores a pedagogical response to contemporary technocratic conditions in which human experience is increasingly reduced to data, prediction, and optimization. I begin from the premise that movement is a necessary condition of life and being, and that embodiment is the primary site through which this movement becomes lived and intelligible. Under conditions where experience is rendered as standing-reserve, technocratic systems impose a form of stasis that constrains human possibility and undermines meaningful becoming.

Drawing on Heidegger, Foucault, and critical pedagogy, I argue that philosophy should be understood not as the transmission of knowledge, but as the cultivation of conditions under which students encounter epistemic obstacles, undergo rupture, and develop embodied forms of understanding. Central to this approach is the recognition of anxiety not as a defect, but as a signal that makes circumspection and learning possible.

This framework is demonstrated through the design of a contemporary moral and political philosophy course that integrates normative theory, structural critique, and embodied practice. In an age of algorithmic governance and disembodied learning, pedagogy must cultivate subjects capable not only of critical thought, but of embodied, responsive engagement with their world. Resisting technocracy, then, is not only a matter of critique, but of preserving the conditions under which agency, meaning, and creative life can emerge.

Bio: Alena Catherine Chavez is pursuing her M.A. in Philosophy at San Francisco State University, where her work engages questions of coloniality, ethics, political discourse, and reproductive justice. She received her B.A. in Philosophy with a double minor in Race and Resistance Studies and Political Science. For more than nine years, Alena has been deeply committed to social justice, liberation, community organizing, and advocacy. Over the past five years, she has worked alongside colleagues to help pass six laws protecting reproductive healthcare providers and expanding access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare across the United States. Her professional experience in the nonprofit sector has deeply informed her academic research, allowing her to bridge philosophical inquiry with lived experience, policy advocacy, and movement work. Alena’s graduate research examines how coloniality shapes the political, ethical, and moral discourse surrounding abortion in the United States. More broadly, her scholarship is concerned with the ways colonialism and coloniality continue to influence gender, economics, politics, and knowledge production. Outside of her academic and advocacy work, Alena can often be found playing pool or reading political and social philosophy at Dolores Park in the city by the bay. 

Coloniality, Sentimentalist Virtue Ethics, and Reproductive Justice: How Coloniality Influences the Ethics and Morality of Abortion in the Western Political Canon 

This thesis examines how coloniality influences the political, ethical, and moral discourse surrounding abortion in the United States. I argue that abortion cannot be fully understood through canonical frameworks of individualism, liberal rights-based arguments, privacy, or personhood because said frameworks often disregard the colonial impacts and ongoing systems of power that oppress reproduction. While examining abortion within broader systems of economics, politics, knowledge production, patriarchy, and white supremacy, this thesis illustrates how coloniality maintains whose reproduction is valued, whose autonomy is legitimized, whose moral agency is denied, and whose reproduction is oppressed. By engaging with Enrique Dussel, Loretta Ross, Reva Siegel, and Michael Slote, this project aims to highlight the limitations of liberal rights-based arguments for abortion and considers how a sentimentalist virtue-ethical framework may offer a more substantive account of the morality of abortion. However, I argue that the reproductive justice framework addresses the root cause of reproductive oppression and provides a more expansive ethical framework for understanding reproductive liberation. Yes, rights do remain politically necessary; however, I maintain that liberal rights-based frameworks based on individualism, privacy, or personhood are insufficient when experiencing reproductive oppression. In conclusion, this thesis illustrates how reproductive justice and ethics of liberation enables us to understand abortion not simply as an individual choice, but as a critical part of the broader struggle for collective liberation.