Profile photo of Sheridan Hough

Sheridan Hough

Lightsey Humanities Chair and Professor of Philosophy

Sheridan Hough is the author of Kierkegard's Dancing Tax Collector: Faith, Finiture, and Silence (Oxford University Press, 2015)  and Nietzsche's Noontide Friend: The Self As Metaphoric Double (Penn State Press, 1997), which was nominated for the American Philosophical Association Younger Scholar Book Prize in the fall of 2000. She is currently completing another book manuscript on the concept of authority, centered on Kierkegaard's The Book on Adler (under contract with Cambridge University Press). 

In her own words

My philosophical work is avowedly 'free range,' and moves around a variety of interconnected preoccupations. Most of my work is in 19th and 20th Century Continental philosophy, but I have a special interest in exploring connections between philosophy and literature, particularly the reading and writing of fiction and poetry. Phenomenological issues also interest me, and I've explored them in a number of contexts, from the fiction of Virginia Woolf to the Pomo baskets of Native California (see below my "Phenomenology, Pomo Baskets, and the Work of Mabel McKay").

Education

  • Ph.D., Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley
  • B.A., English and Philosophy, Trinity University, San Antonio

Research Interests

  • Central preoccupations of 19th and 20th Century Continental thought such as the constitution of the self and the nature of our ethical claims.
  • Connections between philosophy and the reading and writing of fiction.

Courses Taught

  • 19th Century Philosophy
  • 20th Century Continental Philosophy
  • Existentialism
  • Philosophical Issues in Literature
  • Feminist Theory

Publications

Books

  • Kierkegaard's Dancing Tax Collector: Faith, Finiture, and Silence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
  • Nietzsche's Noontide Friend: The Self As Metaphoric Double, University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1997 (nominated for the American Philosophical Association Younger Scholar Book Prize, Fall 2000).
  • Mirror's Fathom: A Novel, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2012 (Philosophy/Fiction).
  • The Hide, Portland: Inleaf Press, 2007 (a volume of poetry).

Articles

  • "Übermensch or Untermensch: a Phenomenological Critique of Heidegger's Overman," Sophia 62 (2):327-339 (2023).
  • "Enhancement, Ethics, and Existentialism" (with Chimowitz, Hannah & Sade, Robert). American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 6 (1):48-49. (2015)
  • "The Ambience of Principles: Sellarsian Community and Ethical Intent. In Jay L. Garfield (ed.), Wilfrid Sellars and Buddhist Philosophy: Freedom From Foundations. New York: Routledge, pp. 97-110. (2018)
  • "Would Sartre Have Suffered From Nausea If He Had Understood the Buddhist No-Self Doctrine?" Contemporary Buddhism 13 (1): 99-112 (2012).
  • "Silence, 'Composure in Existence,' and the Promise of Faith's Joy," in Marc A. Jolly, ed. Why Kierkegaard Matters, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010.
  • "The Bureau(crat), the Dancer, and the Movements of Faithful Self-Concern," in Robert L. Perkins, ed. The Moment and Late Writings, International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 23, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009.
  • "What the Faithful Tax Collector Saw (Against the Understanding)," in Robert L. Perkins, ed. Without Authority, International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 18, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2007.
  • "'Halting is Movement': the Paradoxical Pause of Confession in "An Occasional Discourse"," in Robert L. Perkins, ed., Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 15, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2005.
  • "Phenomenology, Pomo Baskets, and the Work of Mabel McKay," Hypatia, Volume 18/2, Spring 2003.
  • "To the Lighthouse, Via the Things Themselves: Husserl, Woolf, and 'Androgynous Phenomenology'," International Studies in Philosophy, Issue 34/4, 2002.
  • "Kierkegaard's Teleological Suspension," Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 31/2, Summer 2000
  • "Humean Androgynes and the Nature of 'Nature'," in Nancy Tuana, ed. Hume: Re-Reading the Canon, University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1999.