Dr. Rory J. Conces is Associate Professor of Philosophy and a member of the International Studies faculty. He was born in East Chicago, Indiana and was raised in the nearby communities of Hammond and Munster. He received his B.A. in psychology and philosophy from Creighton University (1976), M.A. in philosophy from DePaul University (1980), and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Dr. Conces was an editor of the International Third World Studies Journal and Review for more than a decade. He is the founding and current editor-in-chief of ID: International Dialogue, A Multi-Disciplinary Journal of World Affairs.
Dr. Conces has written on ethics, political philosophy, the philosophy of science, aesthetics, and the teaching of critical reasoning. A monograph on conflict resolution and applied philosophy, Blurred Visions: Philosophy, Science, and Ideology in a Troubled World, was published in 1997. He is also a contributor to Bosnia Daily, an electronic newspaper in Sarajevo, as well as Serbia Daily, an electronic publication in Belgrade. His most recent article, A Physicalist Theory of Managing Impediments to Democracy and Peace Building in the Balkans, was published in Eidos (December 2019). Dr. Conces' work has also been translated into Albanian, Bosnian, and German. Some of the other journals in which he has been published include European Journal of Anayltic Philosophy, Acta Analytica, Kakanien Revisited, Theoria, The Locke Newsletter, International Third World Studies Journal and Review, Journal of Philosophy and Social Science, APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy, Southwest and Sociological Analysis.
He is currently working on papers covering ethics, evocative objects, ethnic nationalism, conflict prevention, terrorism, and strong paternalism. He also furthered his work on strategies for resolving intractable conflicts by participation in workshops sponsored by the Nansen Dialogue Centres and Kosovo Initiative for Democratic Society (KIDS) on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution in Bjelašnica, Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 2001 and the Alternatives to Violence Project (2003), as well as being an observer at the Dialogue for Reconstruction of Afghanistan's Civil Society during July 1999. During the past nine years, Dr. Conces has lectured in China at South China Normal University, Zhongshan University, and Hangzhou Teachers College; in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) at the University of Sarajevo, the University Dzemal Bijedic of Mostar (BiH), and the University of Tuzla; in Croatia at the University of Rijeka; in Kosovo at the University of Prishtina, the University of Priština, Kosovska Mitrovica (including Istanbul, Turkey), and at the Academic Training Association Mitrovica Summer School; in Northern Ireland at Queen's University of Belfast; in Austria at The European Training and Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Graz; in England at University College, in Denmark at Aarhus University in December of 2009; and in Sweden at Malmö University in 2010. He returned to the Bakans in the summer of 2010 to conduct research in Srebrenica, BiH and to give a presentation at the Balkan Policy Institute in Prishtina, Kosovo. His most recent trip to Kosovo was in the summer of 2019 to present at the Balkan Society for Theory and Practice Workshop. He was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH) during the Spring term of 2001 and at the University of Prishtina in Kosovo during the Fall term of 2008.
Dr. Conces has taught courses on Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Ethical Theory, Contemporary Moral Issues, Social Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Critical Reasoning, History of Twentieth Century American Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Logic, and Religion and Conflict.