Faculty & Staff

Biography: Dr. Manian has a PhD in Economics. Her research focuses on South Asia. She is currently the chair of the Department of Philosophy, Religion and Liberal Studies.

Phil 2010 - Survey of Philosophy, GC2Y Equality and Justice, and GC1Y Philosophy and Social Justice.  

Political Philosophy, Race Theories, Feminist Philosophies, Theories of Democracies, Theories of Post-colonialities. 

Love, Pleasure, Friendship and the Good Life; Philosophy, Art and the Art of Living; Philosophy of Law; Ethics; and Social and Political Philosophy

Dr. Winchester has published books on Nietzsche, Cross cultural understanding of art and his most recent work, Ethics in an Age of Savage Inequalities (Lexington Press).  He is currently working on a book on the good life.

Myth, Magic, and Psychoanalysis; Confucianism and Daoism; Democracy and Identity: East and West; Existentialism, Buddhism, Daoism, and the Myth of Mediation.

Dr. Wang has been a member of the Georgia College faculty in the department of Philosophy since 2008. He received his doctoratal degree from Pennsylvania State University, and originally hails from China where he studied economics as an undergraduate. Dr. Wang specializes in areas of Asian philosophy and religion, contemporary continental philosophy, and ethics. He has published in a number of journals on topics of Asian philosophy, and is currently working on his book, tentatively titled The Enchantment of Ritual and the Way of Heart.

Dr. Hom earned her BA at Wellesley College, and an MA and PhD in Philosophy at Stony Brook University.

Dr. Newman earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Pennsylvania State University. She completed undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and International Relations at Middle Tennessee State University. Her interests are in 20th century continental philosophy, ethics, and social-political philosophy.

World Religions South Asia, Introduction to World Religions, Hindu Traditions, Islam in the Modern World, Religion and the Body, Religion and Media, Religion and Human Rights, Religion and Science Fiction, and other special topics.

http://jgitting.com/

Dr. Gittinger’s work focuses on religion, media, and popular culture. She received her doctorate from McGill University in Montreal, and has master’s degrees from University of Colorado in Boulder and SOAS in London, with emphais on modern Hinduism. Her research interests include Religion and Media, and virtual methodologies. Her third book was published in 2024 titled American Apocalyptic: beliefs, rituals, and expressions of doomsday culture in the US (Palgrave-Macmillian). See website for complete list of publications.

Environmental Ethics; Animal Ethics; Liberation Theology; Religion, Science and the Natural World; Christianity and the Environment; Historical Jesus

Dr. Causey is a lecturer and teaches courses in the core curriculum as well as in Christian thought and ethics.  His main research interests are in animal ethics, environmental ethics, and food ethics. He is a member of the Sustainability Council.  

RELI 3500 Buddhist Traditions in Asia

GC1Y 1000 Critical Thinking: Religion and Non-violence

RELI 3950 Religious Epics

GC2Y - 2000 Global Perspectives: Religion and Reciprocity 

Caley Smith is a scholar of early South Asian religious history and political imagination. His work focuses primarily on the conceptual continuities and disruptions between the Vedas and emergent ascetic and householder traditions. His current book project, The Invisible Mask, explores the ritual impersonation of the god Indra and its influence on the recitation traditions of early Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

Survey of Philosophy

Dr. Eckley earned his Bachelor’s in political science and philosophy from Ferrum College and his Master’s and Ph.D. in philosophy from Purdue University. Prior to teaching at GCSU, he taught at the University of Portland. His research is primarily in Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics applied to contemporary social and moral topics. He is a visiting lecturer for the 2023-24 academic year. 

Gehad Abdelal received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees with Honors from Cairo University, Egypt, and went on to earn her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, Athens. Her research is centered on feminist philosophy and religion, non-Western philosophy, water ethics, and AI ethics. In her teaching, she prioritizes philosophical analytical and critical writing.

https://sites.google.com/view/joel-d-alvarez

Intro/Survey to Philosophy, Intro to Ethics, Science in its Cultural Context

Joel David Alvarez earned an undergraduate degree in Philosophy (2019) minoring in both history and Latino studies from Brooklyn College and a master’s in philosophy from University of South Florida (2023). Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy at the University of South Florida. He was awarded the Paul Copan Scholarship (2023) from Palm Beach Atlantic University and his paper "Christian Materialism, Logic & The Spiritual Realm" won the third prize in the 2022 Tyndale House Cambridge for Philosophers of Religion. He published two works on Indigenous Philosophy: “Native American Epistemology Through Dreams.” Ways of Being in the World: An Introduction to Indigenous Philosophies of Turtle Island, Andrea Sullivan-Clarke (ed.) (Broadview Press 2023) and “Spinozism and Native Americans on Pantheism and Panentheism.” Pantheism and Ecology. Cosmological, Philosophical, and Theological Perspectives, – Luca Valera (ed.) (Springer Series Ecology and Ethics 2023). His areas of expertise are early modern philosophy (Especially Leibniz), philosophy of religion, and Native American philosophy. Areas of competence are, medieval philosophy, African philosophy, ethics, philosophy of science, and metaphysics.