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Silvia Benso


Silvia Benso

Professor, Philosophy; Director, Women's and Gender Studies Program, Rochester Institute of Technology

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Silvia Benso has been Professor of Philosophy at RIT since Winter 2008. After doing her undergraduate work in philosophy at the University of Torino, Italy, and studying in Germany for almost two years, she graduated with a Ph.D. in philosophy from Penn State University, USA. Among her areas of interest and specialization are ancient philosophy, contemporary European philosophy, the history of philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and feminist theories. Besides having published articles on Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas, and ancient philosophy (especially Plato), she is the author of Thinking After Auschwitz: Philosophical Ethics and Jewish Theodicy (in Italian); The Face of Things: A Different Side of Ethics; Viva Voce: Conversations with Italian Philosophers, and the co-author of the volume Environmental Thinking: Between Philosophy and Ecology (in Italian). She has also co-edited the volumes Contemporary Italian Philosophy: Between Ethics, Politics and Religion; Levinas and the Ancients; Between Nihilism and Politics: The Hermeneutics of Gianni Vattimo; Thinking the Inexhaustible: Art, Interpretation, and Freedom in the Philosophy of Luigi Pareyson; Open Borders: Encounters between Italian Philosophy and Continental Thought, and Contemporary Italian Women Philosophers: Stretching the Art of Thinking. She is the general co-editor for the series Contemporary Italian Philosophy published by SUNY Press and the co-director for SIP—Society for Italian Philosophy.