Resume

• 2014

  Christian Brothers University

  Memphis College of Art

  Memphis

  Tennessee

  Adjunct Professor of Humanities\n\nCourses Taught: History of Theory and Criticism

  Philosophy of Film

  Assistant Professor

  Memphis College of Art

  Memphis

  Tennessee

  United States

  Associate Professor Of Philosophy

  Christian Brothers University

  Memphis

  Tennessee

  Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy\n\nCourses Taught: Contemporary Moral Problems

  Philosophy and Race

  Technology and Human Values

  Philosophy and Film

  Medical Ethics

  Business Ethics

  Assistant Professor of Philosophy

  Christian Brothers University

  Memphis Blues Society

  Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

  American Philosophical Association

  Faculty Development Award

  Project Title: “Terror

  Torture and Democratic Autoimmunity”

  Rhodes College

  Faculty Development Award

  Project Title: “Weak Humanism”

  Rhodes College

  Creative Advance Planning (CAP)-Mellon Study Leave

  Rhodes College

  Department of Philosophy Teaching Award

  The Pennsylvania State University

  University-wide Outstanding Teaching Award

  The Pennsylvania State University

  Center for the Outreach and Development of the Arts (CODA) Grant

  Project Title: THE AMERICAN VALUES PROJECT

  Rhodes College

  College of Liberal Arts Award for Excellence in Research in the Humanities

  The Pennsylvania State University

  Hill Grant for Curricular Development

  Project Title: “Blogging in the Classroom: Utilizing New Media to Develop Writing-Intensive Courses”

  Rhodes College

  Institute for the Arts and Humanities Research Residency Award

  The Pennsylvania State University

  College of Liberal Arts and Humanities Initiative Award

  The Pennsylvania State University

• 2011

  THE AMERICAN VALUES PROJECT is a photo-documentary project that aims to demonstrate the variety

  diversity

  and sometimes incompatibility of Americans' values. I asked Americans to send in a photograph of themselves holding a sign on which they had written one thing that they valued. The curated collection was shown at Talley Beck Contemporary gallery in New York City as a part of the Festival of Ideas for a New City in May 2012. It was shown again at Marshall Arts gallery in Memphis

  Tennessee in May 2013. The photo collection is preserved on THE AMERICAN VALUES PROJECT website linked above.

• 2007

  Rhodes College

  Memphis

  Tennessee

  Assistant Professor the Department of Philosophy\n\nCourses Taught: Social and Political Philosophy

  Humanism and Human Rights

  Philosophy of Race

  Ethics

  19th Century Philosophy

  Existentialism

  Feminist Philosophy

  Special Topics in Philosophy (\"Power\")

  Philosophy and Film

  Search for Values in Light of Western History and Religion (Ancient Period)

  Search for Values (Modern Period)

  Honors Tutorial

  Senior Seminar

  Assistant Professor of Philosophy

  Rhodes College

• 2006

  Since 2006

  I have been the sole author of the ReadMoreWriteMoreThinkMoreBeMore blog. My site has been visited by over a half-million unique visitors and has been cited/linked in The New York Times

  The Chronicle of Higher Education

  Jezebel

  InsideHigherEd

  Daily Kos

  Mic

  and The Washington Post

  among others.

  Johnson

  Leigh

• 2004

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

  Dissertation Committee: Shannon Sullivan (Co-Director)

  John Caputo (Co-Director)

  John Christman

  Vincent Colapietro

  Paul Tiyambe Zeleza\n\nDissertation Title: \"Haunted Democracies and the Politics of Possibility: A Deconstructive Analysis of Truth Commissions\"

  Philosophy

  with a Doctoral Minor in African and African-American Studies

  Penn State University

• 2001

  Master’s Degree

  Philosophy

  Villanova University

• 1994

  Bachelor’s Degree

  Philosophy

  The University of Memphis

• Curriculum Design

  Curriculum Development

  Academic Advising

  Political Philosophy

  Theory

  Philosophy

  Ethics

  Student Affairs

  University Teaching

  Grant Writing

  Student Development

  Courses

  History

  Teaching

  Human Rights

  Higher Education

  “Risking Our Security

  or Securing Our Risk?: Neoimperialists Play With A Stacked Deck”

  Abstract: I argue that “neolimperialism” constitutes a new mode of discourse peculiar to a new political-economic hegemon: namely

  the twenty-first century United States. I argue against Niall Ferguson

  who has argued that the United States of simply evidences a lack of imperial resolve

  an inability to fully commit to Empire

  because it fears the sacrifices that imperialism proper demands

  the most devastating of which is risking the moral high ground in international politics. On this account

  neoimperialism esitates

  and ultimately fails

  in those moments where it refuses to take the risks of Empire. Ferguson’s critique is too one-dimensional

  I argue

  and leaves no room for an anti-neo-imperialist position that is also anti-imperialist. Reducing the erroneous logic of neoimperialism to a mere shortsightedness about policy decisions misses the real internal paradox of Americaʼs new foreign policy. Specifically

  U.S. advocates of neoimperialism find themselves caught in a double-bind: too committed to democracy to run the risks of Empire

  yet too enticed by Empire to run the risks of democracy. Hence

  I argue that inasmuch as we are willing to grant that the discourse of neoimperialist risk management truncates or neutralizes the drive for Empire

  we must also consider the way in which it similarly curtails the democratic imperative to remain open to risk.

  “Risking Our Security

  or Securing Our Risk?: Neoimperialists Play With A Stacked Deck”

  Abstract: Shortly before his death in 2004

  Jacques Derrida provocatively suggested that the greatest problem confronting contemporary democracy is that ‘the alternative to democracy can always be represented as a democratic alternative’. This article analyses the manner in which certain manifestly anti-democratic practices

  like terror and torture

  come to be taken up in defense of democracies as a result of what Derrida calls democracy’s ‘autoimmune’ tendencies.

  \"Terror

  Torture and Democratic Autoimmunity\"

  Abstract:The following provides a philosophical interpretation and grounding of the work of the most famous truth commission. It is divided into three sections. In the first section

  I rehearse the historical context of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

  including the forty year system of apartheid and the transition to democracy in the early 1990s

  in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of analyzing the South African TRC as a \"model\" case. In the second section

  I discuss two particular philosophical themes—transitional truth and historical justice –which I view as central to the legitimating theoretical foundation of the TRC. In the final section

  I address some objections to the TRC that can be found in the contemporary literature surrounding Truth Commissions and transitional justice

  with an aim to answering these objections in light of my treatment of transitional truth and historical justice.

  “Transitional Truth and Historical Justice: Philosophical Foundations and Implications of the South African TRC”

  Abstract: This is a response to Jeff Gross'​ essay \"Into the Cauldron: Neoliberalism

  Ideology

  Education

  and Life Itself.\"​ I argue that Gross'​ case for the pernicious damage done by higher education's neoliberal ideology is not only evident in the harm done to students

  but also in the over-reliance upon and harm done to precariously-employed faculty.

  \"Shut Up and Teach\"

  WORKING IN MEMPHIS: A DOCUMENTARY is a short film directed

  produced and edited by Leigh M. Johnson and Sophie Osella. Filmed in the summer of 2013

  WORKING IN MEMPHIS tells the behind-the-scenes story of several Memphis musicians who make their livelihoods by performing on world-famous Beale Street

  seven nights a week

  365 days a year.