Christopher F. Zurn, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Homepage: www.uky.edu/~cfzurn
E-mail: cfzurn@uky.edu
Office: (859) 257-1849
Philosophy Dept.: (859) 257-1861
Philosophy Dept. Fax: (859) 257-3286
Office Hours By appointment in Patterson Office Tower #1407

UK Department of Philosophy


Syllabus for Philosophy 535, Fall 2008, Classics of Social and Political Philosophy

Syllabus for Philosophy 715, Fall 2008, Seminar on Habermas's Political Philosophy


I specialize in social and political philosophy, the philosophy of law, and contemporary European philosophy. My work focuses on three areas: deliberative democratic theories of constitutional democracy, theories of social justice, and, critical social theoretic conceptions of personhood and identity.

Combining political theory, the philosophy of law, and some comparative institutional research, I've recently completed work on a deliberative democratic account of how to properly justify and institutionalize the institutions of constitutional review. Thanks to a research fellowship granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to work at the philosphy department of the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 2004-2005, I was able to complete my book exploring these problems entitled Deliberative Democracy and the Institutions of Judicial Review. The next challenges I'm working on concern foundational and applied issues arising from my developing conception of deliberative democratic constitutionalism: the potential paradoxes, progressive prospects, and possible institutional designs for significantly democratizing processes of constitutional creation, elaboration, and governance.


Zurn's CV (PDF file)


Some of Zurn's published research:

New Waves in Political Philosophy, co-edited with Boudewijn de Bruin (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Deliberative Democracy and the Institutions of Judicial Review (Cambridge University Press, 2007):
CUP catalog flyer
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 5: Disagreement and the Constitution of Democracy
Chapter 9: The Institutions of Constitutional Review II: Horizontal Dispersal and Vertical Empowerment

"Juergen Habermas," an overly long draft of an encyclopedia article forthcoming in History of Continental Thought, Volume 6: Poststructuralism and Critical Theory: The Return of Master Thinkers, ed. Alan D. Schrift (Acumen Press).

"Social Pathologies as Second-Order Disorders," forthcoming in The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth, edited by Danielle Petherbridge

"Recognition, Redistribution, and Democracy: Dilemmas of Honneth's Critical Social Theory," European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 13, #1 (April 2005): 89-126

"Identity or Status? Struggles over 'Recognition' in Fraser, Honneth, and Taylor." Constellations, Vol. 10, #4 (December 2003): 519-537

"Deliberative Democracy and Constitutional Review." Law and Philosophy, Vol. 21 (2002): 467-542


Helpful Links
Episteme Links: Philosophy Resources on the Internet An excellent collection of philosophy related links
Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy An important, and still developing, philosophy encyclopedia, available for free
Oxford English Dictionary The gold standard of dictionaries (available only from UK computers or via proxy)

LEXIS®-NEXIS® Academic Universe Home Page The best source for cases and law review articles (available only from UK computers or via proxy)
Supreme Court of the United States SCotUS website , a bit behind the technological times, but crucial for the most recent opinions
FindLaw: Supreme Court Opinions Good free database of SCotUS decisions since 1893; good information on the constitution
Cornell Legal Information Institute Good free database of SCotUS decisions, and other courts (federal, appellate, New York)

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Lightly Updated August, 2008


The linked documents are PDF files; you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them