Curriculum Vitae · Full Record

Research & Scholarly Record

The complete record of publications, presentations, grants, supervision, teaching, and service for Bruce B. Janz, Professor of Philosophy, University of Central Florida. Last updated June 2026.

Education

Academic Employment

University of Central Florida, Orlando (2003– )

  • Professor of Humanities (2011– )
  • Director / Co-Director, Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR) (2007– )
  • Core Graduate Faculty, Texts and Technology Ph.D. Program (2012– )
  • Chair, Dept. of Philosophy (2008–2013)
  • Associate Chair, Dept. of Philosophy (2007–2008)
  • Director of the Humanities Program (2003–2013)

Augustana University College / University of Alberta, Camrose (1992–2003)

  • Associate Professor of Philosophy
  • Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Liberal Arts (CIRLA)

Fellowships, Lectureships & Visiting Appointments

Awards

  • 2026–27 UCF Full Year Sabbatical
  • 2024–25 UCF Research Incentive Award
  • 2018–19 UCF Research Incentive Award
  • 2017–18 UCF Full Year Sabbatical
  • 2015–16 UCF Teaching Incentive Program Award
  • 2013–14 UCF Research Incentive Award
  • 1998–99 Augustana Full Year Sabbatical

Grants & Funding

  • 2021–2 Co-PI, The Global Pandemic of 2020–2022 (Mark Kamrath, PI). Florida Humanities Council. $5,000.
  • 2020 PI, Expanding CHDR Infrastructure, Research, and Public Programming. UCF Tech Fee Grant. $128,951.
  • 2020–25 Co-PI, Expanding CHDR (Mark Kamrath, PI). NEH Challenge Grant. $193,736 of $331,778 total.
  • 2012 Co-PI, The Charles Brockden Brown Electronic Archive (Mark Kamrath, PI). NEH. $200,000.
  • 2012 Co-PI, Vine Online (Kristin Congdon, PI). NEA. $25,000.
  • 2011–2013 Co-PI, Space, Science and Spirituality: Simulating Awe and Wonder (Shaun Gallagher, PI). Templeton Foundation. $300,000.
  • 2010 Co-PI, Florida High-Tech Corridor. $40,000.
  • 2009–2010 Co-PI, INTx Expeditions (with Phil Peters). TracStar/Cobham Industries. $131,425.
  • 2007 Co-PI, Using Digital Mapping in the Arts and Humanities. UCF CAH. $18,582.
  • 2007 Co-PI, National Folkvine. UCF CAH. $29,595.
  • 1997 PI, SSHRC Occasional Conferences Funding (Generating Surprises). CAN$10,000.

Books

Single Authored

Co-Authored

Edited

Book Series Edited

Journal Guest Editing

  • Co-guest editor (with Tamara Seiler), Free Space: Reconfiguring Interdisciplinary Theory and Practice. Special Issue of History of Intellectual Culture, 2003/2004.

Chapters in Books

Refereed

  • "Enactivist Cognition and Ubuntu" in Jed Forman, ed., Routledge Handbook of Global Cognitive Science of Religion. Forthcoming.
  • "Heidegger and Being Digital: AI, Cognition, and the Question of Non-Human Dwelling" in Axel Karamercan, ed., Resituating Heidegger's Topology of Being. Bloomsbury, Forthcoming.
  • "Thinking In Place and With Place" in Anke Graness, ed., Places of African Philosophy. Forthcoming.
  • "Transhumanism and Moral Enhancement" in Amara Chimakonam, ed., Transhumanism in Africa. Springer, forthcoming June 2026.
  • "Orality as Philosophical Performance" in Anke Graness, ed., Orality and Philosophy. Forthcoming.
  • "Orality Imagines a Future" in Anke Graness, ed., Orality and Philosophy. Forthcoming.
  • "The Grey Zone of Decolonization" in Simone Maddanu et al., eds., The Routledge International Handbook of Postcolonial Sociologies. Routledge, Forthcoming.
  • "Big and Large Data" in Michael Butler & Ian Werkheiser, eds., Finding Our Place in the Digital World. Springer Nature, Forthcoming.
  • "Peripherality, Non-Philosophy and Ecology in African Philosophy" in African Philosophy and Deep Ecology. Routledge, 2025.
  • "Personhood in African Philosophy and the Possibility of Social, Psychological, and Cognitive Science" in African Philosophy and its Association with Psychology and the Social Sciences. Routledge, forthcoming Sept. 2026.
  • "Thad Metz, Meaning as Fundamentality, and African Philosophy" in Molefe, Munamato & Rodrigues, eds., Thaddeus Metz. Wits University Press. Forthcoming.
  • "Spaces of Virtue in Universities" in Ingrid Stefanovic, ed., Conversations on Ethical Leadership. University of Toronto Press, 2024.
  • "African Philosophy and the Question of the Future" in Handbook of African Philosophy. Springer, 2023.
  • "Oruka, Odinga, and Pragmatic Sagacity" in Kresse & Nyarwath, eds., New Approaches to Sage Philosophy. Lexington Books, 2023: 123–140.
  • "Play, World, and the Human" in Farin & Malpas, eds., Heidegger and the Human. SUNY Press, 2022: 185–203.
  • "The Universal and the Individual, the Global and the Local" in Handbook of Culture and Glocalization. Edward Elgar, 2022: 61–75.
  • "Ethnophilosophy and the Wellspring of Philosophy in Africa" in Ethnophilosophy and the Search for the Wellspring of African Philosophy. Springer, 2021: 3–15.
  • "The Place That Is Not Here – Derrida's Africa and the Haunting of Place" in Derrida and Africa. Lexington Books, 2019: 1–16.
  • "Mogobe Ramose, Cosmopolitanism, and the Being to Come" in The Tenacity of Truthfulness: Mogobe Ramose. Mkuki na Nyota, 2019: 251–270.
  • "Refiguring the scholarly process, rethinking university practice" in Philosophy on the Border. UKZN Press, 2019: 54–70.
  • "Hermeneutics, Self-Knowledge and Self-Interpretation" in Third-Person Self-Knowledge, Self-Interpretation, and Narrative. Springer, 2018: 159–175.
  • "Virtual Place and Virtualized Place" in The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places. Routledge, 2018: 60–75.
  • "The Edges of (African) Philosophy" in Debating African Philosophy. Routledge, 2018: 213–227.
  • "Peripherality and Non-Philosophy in African Philosophy" in African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation. Routledge, 2018: 9–23.
  • "Is Place a Text?" in Place, Space and Hermeneutics. Springer, 2017: 23–34.
  • "Introduction" in Place, Space and Hermeneutics. Springer, 2017: 1–5.
  • "Unprecedented Experience and Levinas's Heideggerian Idolatry of Place" in Place and Phenomenology. Rowman and Littlefield, 2017: 281–295.
  • "The Geography of African Philosophy" in The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2017: 155–166.
  • "Elements of Philosophy-in-Place: Learning from African Philosophy" in Orte des Denkens – Places of Thinking. Verlag Karl Alber, 2017: 149–163.
  • "Instrumentalization in Universities and the Creative Potential of Race" in Being At 'Home'. UKZN Press, 2015: 273–296.
  • "Hermeneutics and Intercultural Understanding" in Routledge Companion to Philosophical Hermeneutics. Routledge, 2014: 474–485.
  • "Why Boehme Matters Today" in An Introduction to Jacob Boehme. Routledge, 2013: 279–293.
  • "Forget Deleuze" in Postcolonial Literatures and Deleuze. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012: 21–36.
  • "Philosophical Issues in Ethnophysiography" in Landscape in Language. John Benjamins, 2011: 101–119.
  • "The Water is Wide: Risking Tears in the Met, and Elsewhere" in On the Verge of Tears. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010: 12–22.
  • "Thinking Like a Mountain: Ethics and Place as Travelling Concepts" in New Visions of Nature. Springer, 2009: 181–195.
  • "Making a Scene and Dwelling in Place" in Imaging Place. Textual Studies in Canada, 2009: 145–154. Also in Rhizomes 18 (2008).
  • "Philosophy As If Place Mattered: The Situation of African Philosophy" in What Philosophy Is. Continuum, 2004: 103–115.
  • "Universities in Times of National Crisis: the Cases of Rwanda and Burundi" in Globalizing Africa. Africa World Press, 2003: 465–482.
  • "Alterity, Dialogue, and African Philosophy" in Postcolonial African Philosophy. Basil Blackwell, 1997: 221–238.

Invited

  • "Philosophical Questions, Flowing Like Currents" in Philosophy for the Curious. The Curious Academic Publishing, 2015.
  • "Philosophy-in-Place and Texts Out of Place" in Migrating Texts and Traditions. University of Ottawa Press, 2012: 287–303.
  • "The Concept as Object, Mode, and Catalyst in African Thought" in African Philosophy and the Future of Africa. CRVP, 2011: 171–187.
  • "African Philosophy" in The Edinburgh / Columbia Companion to 20th Century Philosophies. 2007: 689–701. Republished in Atuolu Omalu, 2014.

Journal Articles

Refereed

Invited

Reviews, Encyclopedia & Shorter Work

Review Essays — Refereed

Book Reviews

  • Charlie Hailey, The Porch. Environment, Space, Place 15:1 (2023): 142–147.
  • Sudye Cauthen, Southern Comforts. Florida Historical Quarterly 87:1 (2008): 126–128.
  • Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony. H-Africa, 2002.
  • Higgs, Light & Strong, eds., Technology and the Good Life? Philosophy and Geography 5:2 (2002): 247–9.
  • Barry Hallen, The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful. Philosophy in Review 21:5 (2001): 343–345.
  • George Allan, Rethinking College Education. Philosophy in Review 18:4 (1998): 235–236.
  • William McNamara, Christian Mysticism. Dialogue And Alliance 11 (1997): 166–168.
  • Julie Thompson Klein, Interdisciplinarity. Dianoia 3:2 (1994): 138–140.
  • Donald Evans, Spirituality and Human Nature. Dialogue 34:2 (1994): 406–409.
  • Andrew Weeks, Boehme. Dialogue 33:4 (1994): 762–764.
  • Maurice Friedman, Martin Buber and the Eternal. Eidos 7:1 (1988): 91–98.
  • David Pailin, Groundwork of Philosophy of Religion. Eidos 5:2 (1986): 240–244.

Encyclopedia Contributions

  • "Jacob Boehme," Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopaedia of the Early Modern World. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003.
  • "Comprehension," "Nothingness," "Reflection," "Reflexivity," in V. Y. Mudimbe, ed., Encyclopaedia of African Religions and Philosophy. Kluwer.

Other Writing

  • "Virtual Experience in Keith Harder's Children of Icarus Series," exhibition catalogue, Penticton Art Gallery, 2013/2014.
  • "Emmanuel Eze in memoriam." South African Journal of Philosophy 27:4 (2008): 282–284.
  • (with Emmanuel Eze) "'Uprooted African Am I': Jacques Derrida 1930–2004." Philosophia Africana 8:1 (2005): 79–82.
  • (with Tamara Seiler) "Introduction to Free Space." History of Intellectual Culture, 2003.
  • Periodic columnist, "Educated Guesses / Second Thoughts," Camrose Canadian, 1996–1999.
  • "Truth in Poetry." The Cresset 57:9 (1994): 12–14.

Keynotes & Significant Plenary Presentations

  • 2025 "Thinking In Place and With Place," Opening Plenary, Places of African Philosophies, University of Hildesheim, Germany. [video]
  • 2025 "Big and Large Data," Plenary, Finding Our Place in the Digital World, University of Texas Rio Grande.
  • 2024 "What If Philosophy Was Part Of This World?" Keynote, The Humanities in the 4IR, National Open University of Nigeria, Abuja.
  • 2024 "What If Philosophy Was Part Of This World?" Philosophy and Film, University of Bayreuth.
  • 2024 "Transhumanism and Moral Enhancement," Transhumanism in Africa Colloquium. [video]
  • 2024 "Where is the African Future in Afrofuturism?" Keynote, Zora Neale Hurston Conference.
  • 2023 "Orality as Philosophical Performance," Closing Plenary, University of Hildesheim, Germany.
  • 2023 Conversation with Tendayi Sithole, Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, Bayreuth. [video]
  • 2021 "Play and Becoming-Human in African Philosophy," Keynote, 4th Biennial African Philosophy World Conference, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria.
  • 2019 "How Do We Speak Of Our Place? Achille Mbembe's World," Association for Philosophy and Literature, Klagenfurt.
  • 2017 "Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration in Digital Humanities," Plenary, Science of Team Science Conference, Clearwater Beach.
  • 2016 "Peripherality and Non-Philosophy in African Philosophy," UNICAL Conference, Calabar, Nigeria.
  • 2016 "The Edges of (African) Philosophy," Philosophy in Africa lecture series, UCT, Cape Town.
  • 2016 "The Place That Is Not Here – Derrida's Africa," Cornell University.
  • 2015 "Dialogues and Dialects," St. Augustine College, Johannesburg.
  • 2015 "Free Space in the Academy," D.C.S. Oosthuizen Memorial Lecture, Rhodes University.
  • 2014 "Creating Concepts: The Case of African Philosophy," University of Zurich.
  • 2014 "Hacking the Urban Unconscious," Affective Cities II, Toronto.
  • 2014 "Are There Limit Conditions for Philosophical Habitation?" Torture and Solitary Confinement, Memphis.
  • 2013 "The Location(s) of Philosophy," American Philosophical Association, Baltimore.
  • 2013 "Instrumentalization in Universities," Rhodes University.
  • 2013 "Digital Place and Urban Space," Culture of Cities Conference, New York.
  • 2013 Lectures on Chinavine and Folk Art, Anhui University of Science and Technology, China.
  • 2013 "The Places that are Africa," FAU Undergraduate Conference Keynote.
  • 2010 "Why Boehme Matters Today," Closing Plenary, Oxford University.
  • 2008 "Landscape as Place," Landscape in Language, Albuquerque.
  • 2008 "Reason and Rationality in Eze's On Reason," Keynote, Rhodes University.
  • 2007 "African Philosophy as Philosophy-in-Place," Keynote, Johannesburg.
  • 2007 "Thinking Like a Mountain," New Visions of Nature, University of Nijmegen.
  • 2006 "Hermeneutics and Anthropology," Zentrum Moderner Orient.
  • 2006 "What Does it Mean To Do Philosophy-In-Place?" Jacques Maritain Society, York University.
  • 2003 "The Anatopistic Mystic," University of Alabama, Huntsville.

Presentations

Refereed (selected)

  • 2022 "Big and Large Data," SPEP Digital Worlds Workshop.
  • 2021 "Loneliness and its Others," Bentley University. [video]
  • 2018 "Questions, Problematics and Events in African Philosophy," Rhodes University.
  • 2017 "Awe, Wonder, and the Health of the Built Environment," Yale University.
  • 2016 "Creating and Activating Concepts in Place," 11th East-West Philosophers' Conference, University of Hawai'i.
  • 2015 "The Future of African Philosophy," African Studies Association, San Diego.
  • 2015 "We're World Class!: Orlando's Successive Attempts at Self-Definition," Culture of Cities, Liverpool.
  • 2015 "Conceptualizing DH for Multiple Audiences," Digital Humanities 2015, Sydney.
  • 2013 "Elements of Philosophy-in-Place," Places of Thinking, Vienna.
  • 2013 "Phenomenology and Ethnophilosophy," World Congress of Philosophy, Athens.
  • 2013 "Deleuze and Code," Deleuze Studies Conference, Lisbon.
  • 2013 "The Betweenness of Code," IASESP, University of Florida.
  • 2010 "Forget Deleuze," Deleuze Studies Conference, Amsterdam.
  • 2007 "Philosophy-in-Place and the Limits of Dialogue," ASCP, Tasmania.
  • 2005 "The Terror of the Place," American Studies Association, Washington DC.
  • 2005 "Places that Disasters Leave Behind," Popular Culture Association, San Diego.
  • 2002 "Philosophy as if Place Mattered," Philosophy As… Conference, University of London.
  • 2000 "Can African Proverbs be the Basis for African Philosophy?" CAAS, Edmonton.
  • 1998 "Transdisciplinarity as a Model of Post/Disciplinarity," Generating Surprises, Banff.
  • 1991 "Jacob Boehme's concept of will," Canadian Philosophical Association, Kingston.

Invited (selected)

  • 2025 "Metaquestions and Hermeneutics," University of Fort Hare, South Africa.
  • 2025 "What Large Language Model AI Can Tell Us About Questioning," University of Cape Town.
  • 2025 "Metaquestions and the Act of Philosophical Questioning," Rhodes University.
  • 2025 "Metaquestions and Cognition in Philosophy," STIAS, South Africa.
  • 2024 "Interviews, Dialogues, Conversations on Screen," University of Bayreuth.
  • 2022 "African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition" — overviews and book launches, Hildesheim & Bayreuth.
  • 2021 "African Philosophy as Enactivism," ISCIA Speaker Series. [video]
  • 2018 "How Do We Speak Of Our Place?" WISER, University of the Witwatersrand.
  • 2016 "What Is African Philosophy?" University of Cape Town.
  • 2014 Multiple lectures across South African universities (Free State, Fort Hare, Rhodes, Wits, Johannesburg).
  • 2011 "Shame and Silence," University of Memphis.
  • 2008 Lectures at Fort Hare, Rhodes, Stellenbosch, and Wits, South Africa.
  • 1998–99 Lectures at the University of Nairobi, including the H. Odera Oruka Commemorative Lectures.
  • 1992 "Journalism and the life-world," Kitchener-Waterloo Record seminar.

Workshops & Conferences Organized

  • 2025 Places of African Philosophies, University of Hildesheim. [info]
  • 2025 Finding Our Place in the Digital World, University of Texas Rio Grande.
  • 2018 Flickering Landscapes: The Image of Migration, UCF. [info]
  • 2017 Chair, HASTAC Conference. [info]
  • 2015 Flickering Landscapes: Florida's Landscape, History, and Identity, UCF.
  • 2013 Exploring Awe and Wonder, Templeton Conference, UCF.
  • 2007 Flickering Landscapes: Cinematic Representations of the West, Moab.
  • 2002 CIRLA: Playing the Wild Card, Banff.
  • 2001 CIRLA / Calgary: Paradigms Lost and Paradigms Gained.
  • 1998 CIRLA: Generating Surprises, Banff.
  • 1996 CIRLA: Liberal Arts and the Future of University Education, Banff.

Interviews, Videos & Podcasts

Editorial & Advisory Work

Editorial Boards

Refereeing

  • Referee for 35+ journals and publishers including Bloomsbury, Cambridge, MIT Press, Routledge, SUNY Press, Sage, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, and South African Journal of Philosophy.
  • Grant referee for the NEH, National Humanities Center, SSHRC (Canada), and South Africa's National Research Foundation.

Graduate Supervision

Ph.D. Dissertation Direction

  • Evan Wallace, Texts & Technology (defended April 2026)
  • Kevin Jardaneh, Texts & Technology (2016)
  • John Bork, Texts & Technology (2015)
  • Nada Chehab, Texts & Technology (2020– )

External Examiner — Ph.D. & M.A. Theses (selected)

  • 2025 Howard Ivan Snoyman, University of the Witwatersrand (Bioethics).
  • 2024 Siseko H. Kumalo, University of Pretoria (Political Science).
  • 2023 Amara Esther Ani, University of Pretoria.
  • 2022 Veeran Naicker, University of Cape Town (Sociology).
  • 2021 Samuel Olusegun, University of New South Wales, Australia.
  • 2020 Andrew Turk, Murdoch University, Australia.
  • 2019 Aribiah David Attoe, University of Johannesburg.
  • 2017 Sara Nickerson-White, University of Waterloo (Sociology).
  • 2013 Rianna Oelofsen, Rhodes University.
  • 2008 Bernard Matolino, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
  • 2006 Brian Harris, Australian National University.

Plus 25+ UCF Texts & Technology and interdisciplinary thesis committees (2010–present).

Teaching

University of Central Florida (2003– ) — Selected Courses

  • HUM 3423 African Humanities (14×)
  • PHI 5665 Knowledge, Responsibility and Society (13×)
  • HUM 5803 Theories and Methods of the Humanities (6×)
  • PHI 4804 Critical Theory (5×)
  • HUM 4394 Place and Space (4×)
  • ENG 6810 Theories of Texts and Technology (4×)
  • HUM 3394 Representations of Place and Space (3×)
  • HUM 3830 Introduction to Digital Humanities (3×)
  • HUM 3805 Critical Theory in the Humanities (3×)
  • PHI 3905 African Philosophy (2×)
  • REL 3432 Roots of Western Mysticism (2×)
  • HUM 4931 Deleuze and Guattari (1×)

Other Institutions

  • Rhodes University (2008): Graduate Seminar, "Philosophy-in-Place."
  • Augustana / University of Alberta (1992–2003): 18 distinct courses including Hermeneutics, Philosophy of Western Mysticism, African Philosophy and Postcolonial Studies.
  • University of Nairobi (1998–99): History of Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, MA Seminar on African Philosophy.
  • Wilfrid Laurier University (1990–92); University of Waterloo (1989–91); Renison College; Trent University (1989–90).

Service & Administration

Consulting & Review

  • NEH-Mellon Panel for Reviewing Digital Publication, 2017.
  • NEH Fellowship Review Panels, 2009 & 2013.
  • External program reviews: University of Tennessee Chattanooga (2009); Brandon University (2006); Dowling College (2004).
  • NRF (South Africa) and tenure/promotion reviews for 25+ scholars internationally.

Committee Service

  • Centernet International Executive Council, 2018–
  • Steering Committee, HASTAC, 2016–
  • UCF Tenure and Promotion Committee, 2018–2020.
  • CAH Tenure and Promotion Committee, 2013–2017, 2021–
  • Chair, Texts & Technology Admissions Committee, 2022–
  • Numerous departmental, college, and university committees at UCF (2003–) and Augustana (1992–2003).