Dr. Christopher Panza
Co-Chair of Philosophy & Religion
Associate Professor
Office: (417) 873-6837
cpanza@drury.edu
Dr. Teresa Hornsby
Co-Chair of Philosophy & Religion
Associate Professor
Office: (417) 873-7849
thornsby@drury.edu
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Dr. Christopher Panza
Professor of Philosophy
Email: cpanza@drury.edu
Phone: 417-873-6837
Building: Burnham Hall
Areas of Expertise:
Early Modern Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Nietzsche, Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
Courses Taught (or will teach):
History of Modern Philosophy; Self and Free Will; Epistemology and Metaphysics; Values Analysis; Introduction to Philosophy; Logic and Critical Thinking; Feminist Theory; Existentialism in Philosophy, Literature and Film; Philosophy of Mind
Dr. Panza is a recent addition to the faculty at Drury, arriving here in Fall 2002 after finishing up his Ph.D. work at the University of Connecticut. He is originally a native of the Bronx, a small borough in New York City lush with green, rolling fields, trees and furry animals (a joke). Dr. Panza attended the State University of New York at Purchase for his undergraduate studies, double majoring in philosophy and literature and directly afterward spent three years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook studying philosophy and languages. Starting during his undergraduate years at Purchase and ending after Stony Brook, Dr. Panza worked in management for 10 years at United Parcel Service, a seemingly "endless" period of time in the business world. His experiences at UPS taught him the important lesson that life wasn't meant to be spent watching boxes go by on a conveyor belt. So he decided that life was better spent discussing and arguing totally bizarre, archane and seemingly irrelevant questions with students, which is what he does now at Drury.
Dr. Panza's research interests are split between a number of areas. First, he is interested in the early modern period of philosophy, especially in epistemological and metaphysical problems in the works of John Locke. In addition, he is interested in the problem of autonomy, more specifically in constructing sensible accounts of feminist autonomy and in highlighting the similarities between feminist autonomy and Confucian autonomy. Dr. Panza also has a number of research interests in pedagogical issues, such as the successful integration of web technologies into classrooms.
On a personal level, Dr. Panza has been married for over a year to Dr. Christie Cathey, a professor of social psychology at Missouri Southern State University (in Joplin). They met while graduate students at the University of Connecticut (while playing together on an intramural softball team), and now live in Mt. Vernon with their two dogs Gus (a German Shepherd) and Henry (a miniature Dacschund), their two cats Luka and Bear, and an assortment of annoying Guinea Hens.
