Faculty and Staff

Bruce B. Janz

Bruce B. Janz, Ph.D.

Biography

Bruce Janz is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at UCF, graduate faculty in the Texts & Technology Ph.D. program, and co-director of the CAH Center for Humanities and Digital Research. He has been at UCF since 2003, and was chair of the Philosophy department from 2008 to 2013. Previously he was at Augustana University College (now the Augustana Faculty of University of Alberta), in Alberta, Canada. His Ph.D. is from the University of Waterloo in Canada. He has taught in Canada, the US, Kenya, and South Africa.

Janz has several roles at UCF:

Education

  • Ph.D. in Philosophy from U. of Waterloo (1992)
  • M.A. in Philosophy from U. of Waterloo (1985)

Research Interests

  • Contemporary African Philosophy; Postcolonial Thought 
  • Theories of Place/Space; Urban Studies; Environmental Thought
  • Contemporary European Philosophy: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Deleuze
  • Contemporary Cultural Theory & Aesthetics; Visual Culture; Technology & Culture
  • Digital Humanities; Theories of digitality
  • Liberal Arts, Humanities, and Interdisciplinary Studies; Scholarly Cognition
  • Philosophy & History of Mysticism; Religion, Philosophy & Culture

Recent Research Activities

As co-director of the Center for Humanities and Digital Research, I work with faculty and students to help formulate and implement digital strategies for studying traditional and new humanities areas. The digital humanities enables us to find new objects or new aspects of traditional objects to analyze. We focus less on producing cultural objects with digital media and more on creating and using digital tools to understand the content of culture better. 

I am also working on books and articles on digital humanities, African philosophy, philosophy-in-place, and culture. 

Selected Publications

Books

Edited Collections

Articles/Essays

Book Sections/Chapters

Book Reviews

Conference Papers/Presentations

  • “Big and Large Data”, Digital Worlds Workshop, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

  • “Loneliness and its Others: A Materialist Approach” Loneliness: A Discussion in Philosophy and Psychology. https://videos.bentley.edu/media/t/1_z29pvdty

  • “How Do We Speak Of Our Place? Achille Mbembe’s World”, WISER, University of the Witswatersrand, South Africa, May 22, 2018.
  • “Questions, Problematics and Events in African Philosophy” What-Is Questions and Philosophy Workshop, Rhodes University, Grahamstown South Africa, May 11-13, 2018.
  • “Sasa, Zamani, and Myths of the Future: John Mbiti”, Department of Philosophy, University of the Witswatersrand, South Africa, May 4, 2018.
  • “Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration in Digital Humanities” Plenary panel chair and lead presentation. Science of Team Science Conference, Clearwater Beach FL, June 12-14, 2017.
  • “Peripherality and Non-Philosophy in African Philosophy: Gender, the Environment, and Other Provocations” International Colloquium on Marginalisation in African Philosophy: Women and the Environment. University of Calabar, Nigeria 
  • “First- Second- and Third-Person Self Understanding, the Truman Show Delusion, and the Forensics of Self.” UCT Colloquium Series, Cape Town, South Africa
  • “The Edges of (African) Philosophy”, Philosophy in Africa, Africa in Philosophy lecture series, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa
  • “What Is African Philosophy?” Philosophy Society, University of Cape Town, South Africa
  • “Creating and Activating Concepts in Place: The Example of African Philosophy” The 11th East-West Philosophers’ Conference: “Place”. University of Hawai’i Manoa, Hawai’i.
  • “Hacking the Urban Unconscious: Urban Exploration, Desire, and Anxieties of Place” Orders and Disorders in Spatiality workshop, University of Memphis.
  • “The Place That Is Not Here – Derrida’s Africa and the Haunting of Place” Derrida as a Maghrebian Philosopher Seminar, Cornell University
  • “African Philosophy and its Questions” paper in panel titled “The Future of Research in African Philosophy,” African Studies Association, San Diego
  • "Free Space in the Academy" D. C. S. Oosthuizen Memorial Lecture, Rhodes University, South Africa
  • “Dialogues and Dialects: Rethinking Dialogue through African Philosophy” St. Augustine College, Johannesburg
  • “Is it Possible Africanize the Philosophy Curriculum in Universities in Africa?” African Philosophy Workshop: What Are You Teaching Me? Africanizing the Philosophy Curricula in Universities in Africa University of the Witswatersrand Philosophy Department
  • “Refiguring the scholarly process, rethinking university practice – Scholarly cognition, place, and the creation of concepts.” Critical Pedagogy of Place Workshop, Rhodes University, South Africa.
  • “Scholarly Cognition and the Virtual Space of Academia” St. Augustine College, Johannesburg, SA
  • “Conceptualizing DH for Multiple Audiences: Folkvine and Chinavine.” Digital Humanities 2015. Sydney, Australia.
  • “We’re World Class!: Orlando’s Successive Attempts at Self-Definition and the Proposed University of Central Florida & Valencia College Downtown Campus.” Libidinal Circuits, 3nd Annual Conference of The International Association for the Study of the Culture of Cities, Liverpool UK.
  • “Scholarly Cognition, Digital Humanities and Africa” African Studies in the Digital Age Workshop. University of Michigan.
  • “Hacking the Urban Unconscious – Code, Cities, and Place-Making Imagination” Affective Cities: Scenes of Innovation II. 2nd Annual Conference of The International Association for the Study of the Culture of Cities, Toronto ON August 5-7 2014.
  • “Are There Limit Conditions for Philosophical Habitation? Torture and the Exhaustion of Dwelling” Torture and Solitary Confinement: Phenomenology and Ethics. Memphis TN, April 11-12 2014.
  • “Digital Place and Urban Space” Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, March 13, 2014.
  • “Ontological and Cognitive Wonder” Department of Philosophy, Rhodes University, Grahamstown South Africa, March 19, 2014.
  • “Pushing the Limits of African Philosophy” Department of Philosophy, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein South Africa, March 25, 2014.
  • “Pushing the Limits of African Philosophy” University of Johannesburg Dept. of Philosophy, Johannesburg, South Africa. March 12, 2014.
  • “Torture, Solitary Confinement and Place” Department of Philosophy, University of Ft. Hare, East London, South Africa, March 20, 2014.
  • “The Location(s) of Philosophy: Generating and Questioning New Concepts in African Philosophy” American Philosophical Association Conference, Baltimore, MD, December 2013.
  • “Elements of Philosophy-in-Place: Learning from African Philosophy”. Places of Thinking: On the Claim to Inter-“Cultural” Philosophy. Vienna, Austria, September 26-28 2013.
  • “Instrumentalization in Universities and the Creative Potential of Race”, Institutional Culture Roundtable, Rhodes University, 12-13 September, Grahamstown South Africa.
  • “Wondering at Wonder: The Phenomenology of Unprecedented Experience” Exploring Awe and Wonder. University of Central Florida, Orlando FL 6-8 September 2013.
  • “Digital Place and Urban Space” Poeticizing the Urban Apparatus: Scenes of Innovation Culture of Cities Conference, New York, August 13-15 2013.
  • “Phenomenology and Ethnophilosophy”, Contribution to Roundtable on Ecological Phenomenology. World Congress of Philosophy, Athens, Greece, August 2013.
  • “Deleuzian Code Theory: Can the Materiality of Territorialization Survive in the Digital Age?” Sixth Deleuze Studies International Conference, Lisbon, Portugal. July 8-10, 2013.
  • “The Betweenness of Code”, International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place (IASESP), University of Florida, Gainesville, FL April 26-28, 2013.
  • Brandon Sollins, Lauren Reinerman-Jones, Shaun Gallagher, and Bruce Janz, “An Integrated Approach to Exploring Awe and Wonder.” Phenomenology and its Futures. Johannesburg, South Africa March 29-31 2013.
  • “The Places that are Africa: Taking Africa Seriously as a Philosopher” Florida Atlantic University Undergraduate Student Conference Keynote Address, February 22, 2013.
  • Alex J. Katsaros, Philip Peters, Bruce Janz, Rosalyn Howard, and Robb Lindgren (University of Central Florida) “Interactive Expeditions: Designing, Deploying, and Evaluating Real-Time Learning Delivered Live via Mobile Satellite Communications” International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Conference, Orlando, 13-15 January 2013.
  • “African Philosophy and Philosophy-in-Place,” Roundtable on New Currents in African Philosophy, African Studies Association, December 1, 2012, Philadelphia PA.
  • “Theories and Questions in the Context of Disciplines” International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS) 2012 Special Interest Group Philosophy and Epistemology of IS (SIGPHIL) Workshop on IS Theory: State of the Art. Orlando, Florida, December 17, 2012.
  • “In Awe of It All: Hermeneutical Analysis of Astronauts’ Experiential Descriptions” Space, Science and Spirituality Workshop, Berlin, Germany, June 15, 2012.
  • Why Boehme Matters Or Should Matter Today, Closing Plenary Address, Teutonic Philosophy: Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) in Context, His Life andthe Reception of His Writings. St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, 16-18September 2010.
  • Forget Deleuze, Third International Deleuze Studies Conference. Amsterdam, TheNetherlands. 12-14 July, 2010.
  • “Landscape as Place” Landscape in Language: A Transdisciplinary Workshop. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Oct. 26, 2008.
  • “Practicality and African Philosophy” University of Fort Hare, Fort Hare, South Africa, September 1, 2008
  • “Reason and Rationality in Eze’s On Reason”. Concluding Keynote, Spring Colloquium, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, SA, Sept. 7, 2008.
  • “Digital Humanities: New Possibilities for Humanities in a Digital Age.” Rhodes University, Grahamstown, SA, August 14, 2008.
  • “Philosophy-in-Place and the Limits of Dialogue.” Stellenbosch University, South Africa, August 8, 2008.
  • “The Water is Wide: Risking Tears at the Met, and Elsewhere” Rhodes University, Grahamstown, SA, August 20, 2008.
  • “Philosophy-in-Place and the Limits of Dialogue” Dialogues in Place: The Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, December 5-8, 2007.
  • “Imagining and Imaging Place: Exhaustion and Creation at the Edges of Place-Making” WISER, Witswatersrand University, Johannesburg, SA, October 22, 2007.
  • “The Concept as Object, Mode, and Catalyst in African Philosophy” Concluding Keynote, Philosophy/African Philosophy and the Future of Africa, Johannesburg, SA, October 23-25, 2007.
  • “Thinking Like a Mountain: Ethics and Place as Travelling Concepts.” New Visions of Nature, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, May 31-June 2, 2007.
  • “Making a Scene: Place-Making Imagination, Artistic Production, and Narratives in Urban Space.” Imaging Place: INVENT-L Conference, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, February 24-26, 2007.
  • “What Does it Mean To Do Philosophy-In-Place?” Migrating Texts: The Jacques Maritain Society Conference, May 31, 2006, York University, Toronto, Canada.
  • “Artistic Production as Place-Making Imagination” Symbolic Meanings of Places/Spaces, International Association for the Study of Environment, Space, and Place Conference, Tow­son University, April 30, 2005.
  • “The Anatopistic Mystic, or Why Philosophers Should Read Mystical Texts” University of Alabama, Huntsville, Sept. 19, 2003.

Invited Lectures/Presentations

  • “Interviews, Dialogues, Conversations on Screen” Philosophy and Film: Genres, Convergences, Synergies. University of Bayreuth
  • “What If Philosophy Was Part Of This World?” Keynote, The Humanities in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), National Open University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria.
  • “Transhumanism and Moral Enhancement: African Philosophy, A/Humanism, and the Question of Morality”, Transhumanism in Africa: Questioning the Concept of Radical Enhancement of Humans’ Moral Capacities Colloquium, Center for Phenomenology in South Africa and the Conversational School of Philosophy, Nigeria. 
  • “Where is the African Future in Afrofuturism?” Keynote, Zora Neale Hurston Conference,
  • Conversation with Tendayi Sithole, Annual Conference of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence: Spatialities, Bayreuth, Germany
  • “Orality as Philosophical Performance”. Closing Plenary Lecture, The Status of Oral Traditions in the History of Philosophy: Methodological Considerations. University of Hildesheim, Germany
  • “African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition: A Book Overview”. University of Hildesheim, Germany.
  • “African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition: Book Launch Discussion.” University of Bayreuth, Germany.
  • “Geography and African Philosophy.” University of Bayreuth, Germany. 
  • “Questions and Engagements on Aribiah David Attoe, Groundwork for a New Kind of African Metaphysics.” Book launch panel
  • “Play and Becoming-Human in African Philosophy”, Keynote, 4th Biennial African Philosophy World Conference, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria
  • “Watsuji, Sociality, and Nature” Author meets readers panel on David W. Johnson, Watsuji on Nature, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
  • “African Philosophy as Enactivism: Complexity and the Spaces of Philosophical Thought” ISCIA (Identity and Social Cohesion in Africa) Speaker series, South Africa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9dP-A8hyuY&t=1651s
  • “How Do We Speak Of Our Place? Achille Mbembe’s World”. Part of Close Encounters Panel on Achille Mbembe, Association for Philosophy and Literature, Klagensfurt Austria

Miscellaneous Publications

Awards

see CV

Activities

see CV

Courses

Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
12537 PHI5665 Knowledge Responsib & Society Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Unavailable
No Description Available
Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
83127 HUM3423 African Humanities Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Unavailable
No Description Available
83674 HUM3830 Intro to Digital Humanities Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Unavailable
No Description Available

No courses found for Summer 2025.

Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
18845 ENG6810 Theories of Texts & Technology In Person (P) Tu 06:00 PM - 08:50 PM Unavailable
No Description Available
18830 PHI5665 Knowledge Responsib & Society Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Unavailable
No Description Available
Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
91968 HUM3423 African Humanities Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Unavailable
No Description Available
92527 HUM4394 Place & Space Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Unavailable
No Description Available

No courses found for Summer 2024.

Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
11168 ENG6810 Theories of Texts & Technology In Person (P) Th 06:00 PM - 08:50 PM Unavailable
No Description Available
11151 PHI5665 Knowledge Responsib & Society Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Unavailable
No Description Available
Course Number Course Title Mode Date and Time Syllabus
81265 HUM3423 African Humanities Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Available

In African Humanities we will attempt to define what the humanities are in Africa (and whether the term means the same as elsewhere). There is no single central issue that will run through this course. Rather, there will be several goals. One will be to enable students to tell the difference between non-African stereotypes about Africa, and a more accurate picture of African experience. A second goal will be to develop a deep understanding of what cross-cultural work entails, by considering examples from a variety of African countries. We will look at both Africa's cultural past as well as its present. A third goal will be to strive to understand what Africa is from an African perspective. We will consider contemporary examples of the humanities in Africa (philosophy, religion, history, art, music, theatre, film, digital media).
92640 HUM4394 Place & Space Web-Based (W) 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM Available
This course will examine different disciplinary approaches to the representation and experience of place and space. We will consider physicalist, romantic, phenomenological, structural, constructivist, and determinist versions of place (and the hybrids between them and their critiques), various historical and contemporary versions of space, the ways in which place is represented and constructed in literature, art, architecture, urban planning and cartography, geography, GIS, and other areas, as well as the relationships between place, politics, globalization, and identity. We will also discuss the concept of "sense of place", the attachment people feel to particular places, the loss of place, and explore the ways that students succeed or struggle to make sense of their own places. And, since place implies positionality and situatedness, we will think about how oppositional, disadvantaged, and marginalized spaces are created and maintained for those who inhabit them. The goal of the course will be to equip students to use spatial/platial analysis in a range of disciplines, and critically evaluate and use quantitative, qualitative, and theoretical approaches to these issues. This course is an overview of a vast range of methods of research and concepts that has relevance to many disciplines.

No courses found for Summer 2023.

Updated: Jun 20, 2024