Rebecca Bamford, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, CLI
Specialty: Philosophy
Phone: 507-258-8212
Fax: 507-258-8066
Office: Broadway Hall
Email: sbamford@r.umn.edu
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/rebeccabamford

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, Durham University, 2004
M.A., Philosophy, Durham University, 1998
B.A., Combined Studies in Arts (German, Philosophy, Russian Studies), Durham University, 1997

Background

Rebecca Bamford holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Durham University. Before coming to UMR, she was an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Philosophy at Rhodes University, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University, and she taught philosophy and interdisciplinary humanities at the universities of Durham, Bradford, Sunderland, Rhodes, Emory, and Hunter College, CUNY.

Teaching

At UMR, I am responsible for the design of the Philosophy curriculum component of BSHS. Philosophy is of particular importance to the BSHS program because of the critical thinking, reading, writing and discussion skills that studying philosophy develops in our students. Courses in Philosophy that I teach here at UMR in conjunction with my colleague Cameron Brewer include: 'Introduction to Philosophy', 'Introduction to Ethics', 'Philosophy of Love and Death,' 'Ethics of Medicine and the Sciences', and 'History and Philosophy of Science'. I've taught widely in Philosophy, including courses in ethical theory, applied ethics, biomedical and reproductive ethics, history and philosophy of science, history and philosophy of psychology, and the history of modern European philosophy. I have also taught courses in comparative literature and philosophy of literature, and integrated courses in philosophy and psychology, philosophy and literature, philosophy and biomedical sciences, and philosophy, management, and business ethics at the University of Bradford in England.

Research

My philosophy research involves developing new solutions to problems in bioethics, the history of ethics, philosophical psychology and neuropsychology, comparative philosophy, modern European philosophy, social & political philosophy, aesthetics, and literature. I have published a range of articles on bioethics, ethics, science, and the history of philosophy. 

My research on education and student learning focuses on critical thinking and metacognition. My work in these areas focuses on student metacognition and student acquisition of key skills in critical thinking, including critical analysis skills such as identifying and evaluating arguments, critical reading and writing, exposing fallacies, and exercising moral imagination. I am especially interested in critical thinking in the contexts of students' reading and writing development and in their collaborative work.

Select Publications

Rebecca Bamford (forthcoming 2014). Nietzsche's Method: Experimentalism in Science and Mind. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 

Keith Ansell-Pearson and Rebecca Bamford (forthcoming 2013). Nietzsche’s Dawn: Philosophy as a Way of Living, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Rebecca Bamford, C. D. Brewer, Bayly Bucknell, Heather DeGrote, Loren Fabry, Madeleine E. M. Hammerlund and Bryan M. Weisbrod (2012). “A Paradoxical Ethical Framework for Unpredictable Drug Shortages," American Journal of Bioethics 12(1), 16-18. 

Rebecca Bamford (in press). “Ecce Homo: Philosophical Autobiography in the Flesh,” in Duncan Large and Nicholas Martin (eds.), Nietzsche’s “Ecce Homo”, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 

Rebecca Bamford (in press). "Nietzsche's Politics of Forgetting," Philosophy and Social Criticism.

Rebecca Bamford (in press). "Daybreak," in Paul C. Bishop (ed.), A Companion to the Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer (Camden House).

Rebecca Bamford. 2011. "Reconsidering risk to women: Oocyte donation for embryonic stem cell research," American Journal of Bioethics, 11(9), 37-39.

Rebecca Bamford and Mark D. Tschaepe. 2011. "Biophysical models of human behavior: is there a place for logic?" American Journal of Bioethics - Neuroscience (Special Issue on Free Will and Agency in Neuroscience), 2(3), 70-72.

Rebecca Bamford. 2011. "Cultural diversity, families, and research subjects," American Journal of Bioethics, 11(5), 33-34.

Select Presentations (Education & Pedagogy) 

Rebecca Bamford, "Fair Grades, Attendance & Participation, and Metacognition," American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) Group Session, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting (APA-E), Washington D.C., December 27th-30th, 2011.

Rebecca Bamford, "Philosophy and/as medical humanities: valuing the discipline within an integrated curriculum," Western Michigan University Medical Humanities Conference, September 2011.

Rebecca Bamford, Aminul Huq & Kelsey J. Metzger, "Integrating philosophy across a health sciences curriculum through undergraduate research," The Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Philosophical & Religious Studies Annual Learning and Teaching Conference: "Foundations for the Future," University of Greenwich, London, July 2011.

Rebecca Bamford & Yuko Taniguchi, "Poetry/Philosophy of Death in Medicine: An Interactive Workshop,” “The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine”, hosted by the University of Iowa, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, April 21st-23rd, 2011. 

Rebecca Bamford & Molly J. Dingel, “‘Group Questions’: fostering critical thinking and discussion through collaborative work”, American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) Eighteenth International Workshop-Conference on Teaching Philosophy, Coastal Carolina University, Conway/Myrtle Beach, SC, July 29-August 2, 2010. 

Yuko Taniguchi & Rebecca Bamford, “Imaginative travels in sickness and health: Education in the art of medicine,” at “The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine”, hosted by the University of Iowa, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, April 28th - 30th, 2010.  

Molly J. Dingel, Rebecca Bamford & Robert L. Dunbar, “Optimizing group work to advance learning: exploring collaborative work in undergraduate courses.” MSS-NCSA Annual Meeting in Chicago, March 31st - April 3rd, 2010. 

Select Presentations (Philosophy)

Rebecca Bamford, "The contemporary ethics of oocyte donation," Philosophical Society of Southern Africa Annual Conference, hosted by the Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, January 2012.

Rebecca Bamford, Comments on “Nietzsche, Korsgaard and Gadamer on Interpretation in Ethics,” Main Program, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting (APA‐E), Washington D.C., December 27th‐30th, 2011.

Rebecca Bamford, "Virtue, bioethics and transhumanism: Distributed cognition and collaboration in surgical teams," 1st Global Conference on Transforming Human Nature in Science, Technology and the Arts, Dublin, Ireland, October 2011.

Rebecca Bamford, "Experimentalism, imagination and cognition: Nietzsche's philosophical method between reason and unreason," 18th International Conference of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society, Queen Mary/University of London, September 2011.

Rebecca Bamford, “Nietzsche’s Method: Performing Embodied Philosophy in Ecce Homo,” The Nietzsche Society, in conjunction with the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Montréal, Canada, November 2010.

Rebecca Bamford, "Questions of Identity: The Politics of Reading Nietzsche in South Africa," Global Voices Reading Series, University of Massachusetts Boston, April 2009.

Rebecca Bamford, “Unquestionable foundations? Nietzsche and Dennett on the relationship between philosophy and science”, History of Philosophy Workshop, Rice University, March 2009.

Rebecca Bamford, “Nietzscheanizing Dennett: A New Look at How and Why Freedom Evolves”, Conference on Nietzsche and the Becoming of Life, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile, November 2009.

Rebecca Bamford, “Nietzsche and the enactive approach,” at the 2009 Conference of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society: ‘Nietzsche on Mind and Nature’, St. Peter’s College, Oxford, September 2009.  

Rebecca Bamford, “Renaturalizing philosophical naturalism”, “Science, Technology, and the Humanities: A New Synthesis”, Stevens Institute of Technology, April 24th-25th, 2009.