PROFESSIONAL BIO
Dr. Farmer currently serves as the McDonald Scholar in Residence at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University School of Law. He previously taught courses in philosophy and religion at California State University Fullerton and other southern California colleges.
He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Illinois, an MTS and Th.M. from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, an MA in Philosophy as well as an MA in Religion from Claremont Graduate University and a PhD in the Philosophy of Religion from the University of Münster (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster).
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Originally from Ninety Six, South Carolina, he now resides in Georgia with his wife and two children.
HUMANITY: AN ENDANGERED IDEA?
2023
This volume is a contribution to the Claremont Studies in Philosophy and Religion Series published by Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen). It discusses key philosophical and theological issues related to transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and the ethical challenges facing humanity in our technological culture.​Additional contributors include: Walter Schweidler, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Dirk Evers, Daniel Chernilo, Ronald Cole-Turner, Petr Gallus, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Joseph Prabhu, and others.
GIANNI VATTIMO: Philosopher, Communist, Catholic, Nihilist
Forthcoming
Gianni Vattimo (1936–2023) was among the most significant Italian philosophers of the last fifty years. A controversial figure both at home and abroad, he sometimes described himself paradoxically as a “nihilist” and as a “communist Catholic.” Despite his provocations―and unusually for an academic philosopher―he served two terms in the European Parliament. For decades, Vattimo was at the forefront of developments in continental philosophy, spanning hermeneutics, postmodernity, and the “return to religion.” Drawing on the work of figures such as Heidegger, Marx, Nietzsche, Gadamer, Rorty, and Kuhn, Vattimo constructed his signature concept of “weak thought,” a way of approaching the persistent problems of ideology, violence, and social division after the so-called end of metaphysics.
In this book, Thomas Jared Farmer provides a groundbreaking examination of Vattimo’s life and work. He considers the distinctive contributions that Vattimo made to postmodern thought as well as to recent debates in political philosophy and religion. This book provides an accessible introduction to Vattimo’s overall philosophical project while also contextualizing it through discussions of important intellectual figures, key events in Italian history, and details about his personal trajectory. Authoritative and comprehensive, it is an indispensable companion to the works of one of the most original thinkers to emerge in the second half of the twentieth century.
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Early praise for the book:
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"Thomas Jared Farmer's excellent biography of Gianni Vattimo gives an account of his prestigious academic career and turbulent political life, introduces his important theoretical contributions, and reveals their formative impact on twentieth-century postmetaphysical philosophy, religion, and politics. Indispensable."
--Santiago Zabala, author of Signs from the Future: A Philosophy of Warnings
"Gianni Vattimo's thought continues to inform some of the most important discussions of contemporary philosophy and religion. With this groundbreaking intellectual biography, Farmer provides not only a comprehensive overview of Vattimo's life and work but also an insightful interpretive analysis. You can’t really know Vattimo unless you read it!"
-- Clayton Crockett, University of Central Arkansas and Global Centre for Advanced Studies
"After Gianni Vattimo’s sparkling collaborative autobiography, Not Being God, his thought comes alive a second time thanks to Thomas Jared Farmer’s carefully researched and lucidly written study. The role of Catholicism in Vattimo’s intellectual biography and the place of religion in his philosophy receive particular attention...'weak thought' (pensiero debole), which Vattimo pioneered, should not be forgotten, because today its theoretical practice is more necessary than ever before."
-- Michael Marder, co-editor (with Gianni Vattimo) of Deconstructing Zionism and author of Metamophoses Reimagined
THE UNIQUE, THE SINGULAR, AND THE INDIVIDUAL
2022
This volume is a contribution to the Claremont Studies in Philosophy and Religion Series published by Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen). It engages the theological and metaphysical questions surrounding divine uniqueness, the epistemological and hermeneutical debates about issues of singularity and (in)comparability, and the ethical debates concerning issues of human individuality and ethical formation. ​Additional contributors include: Richard Cross, Peter Ochs, Hans-Peter Grosshans, Hartmut Von Sass, Miguel GarcÃa-Baró, Jacqueline Mariña, Laura Martin, Thomas A. Lewis, Elisabeth Gräb-Schmidt, and others.
THE MEANING AND POWER OF NEGATIVITY
2021
This volume is a contribution to the Claremont Studies in Philosophy and Religion Series published by Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen). It explores the significance of negativity in Western and Eastern thought in four central areas: (1) in the traditions of negative theology in the West; (2) in the dialectics of negativity in the wake of Hegel and in existential philosophy; (3) in versions of negative dialectics and negative hermeneutics in the 20th century; and (4) in Buddhist thought about emptiness, Korean philosophies of nothingness, and the similarities and differences between the mystical traditions of the East and the West. Together, the four parts outline a panorama of questions, positions, and approaches that must be explored by anyone who wants to address questions of negativity in the context of contemporary philosophical, theological, ethical, and existential challenges.​Additional contributors include: Willemien Otten, Stephen T. Davis, Nancy van Deusen, Asle Eikrem, Thomas M. Schmidt, Yuval Avnur, Gal Katz, Elizabeth Pritchard, Emil Angehrn, Hyoseok Kim, and others.
LOVE AND JUSTICE: CONSONANCE OR DISSONANCE?
2016
This volume is a contributions to the Claremont Studies in Philosophy and Religion Series published by Mohr Siebeck (Tübingen). It examines the relationships between love and justice in contemporary thought and society.
Additional contributors include: Richard Amesbury, Ingolf U. Dalferth, Everett Fullmer, Ulrich H. J. Kortner, Thaddeus Metz, Anselm K. Min, Stephen J. Pope, Regina M. Schwarz, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and others.
JESUS AND MARY REIMAGINED IN EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE
2015
This volume is part of the Society for Biblical Literature's "Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplements" Series.​It presents essays that show how prophetic and priestly emphases in Luke and Acts, and emphasis on Jesus’s existence prior to creation in the Gospel of John, are reworked in some second- and third-century Christian literature. Early Christians interpreted and expressed the storylines of Jesus, Mary, and other important figures in ways that created new images and stories. Contributors show the effect of including "rhetography," the rhetoric of a text that prompts images and pictures in the mind of a hearer or reader, in interpretation of texts.
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EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW -
MCDONALD SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE
2023 - Present
My current position is situated within the "Center for the Study of Law and Religion" (CSLR). In this role, I work closely with Prof. John Witte, Jr. (Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law - McDonald Distinguished Professor) and Amy Wheeler (CSLR Chief of Staff) on the planning and administration of the McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellows program. In addition to my own research and writing, I also provide support for Prof. Witte's ongoing research. Among other projects, I am currently working with Prof. Witte on the follow-up volumes to his groundbreaking book, The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge, 2008).
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY FULLERTON -
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR (PHILOSOPHY)
2016 - 2021
Course Design
Lecturing
Grading
Providing Feedback
Limited Advising
FULLERTON COLLEGE -
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR (SOCIAL SCIENCESÂ - PHILOSOPHY)
2017 - 2021
Course Design
Lecturing
Grading
Providing Feedback
Limited Advising
RIVERSIDE CITY COLLEGE -
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR (HUMANITIES & PHILOSOPHY)
2018-2020
Course Design
Lecturing
Grading
Providing Feedback
Limited Advising
NORCO COLLEGE -
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR (HUMANITIES, PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION)
2016 - 2019
Course Design
Lecturing
Grading
Providing Feedback
Limited Advising
EMORY UNIVERSITY CANDLER SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY - GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT
2010 - 2013
During my time as a grad student, I served as research assistant to Prof. Luke Timothy Johnson. In this capacity, I was privileged to be able to work closely with faculty, librarians, fellow-students, and staff to support Prof. Johnson in the completion of several research projects (including work on the 2nd edition of his book, Sharing Possessions, 2011; his collected essays, Contested Issues in Christian Origins and the New Testament, 2013; and his book, The Revelatory Body: Theology as Inductive Art, 2015).