Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven has received a grant from the Ford Foundation of $350,000 for the next two years and eight months to write a book tentatively titled Searching for Ethics in a New America.
The research for the project began two years ago when Ravven was approached by the Ford Foundation and asked to explore ways in which philosophical ethics might be made more culturally inclusive and relevant to the increasingly diverse American polity by building upon the philosopher Spinoza's ethics and politics.
In July of 2004 Ravven developed a project proposal that received a planning year grant of $150,000 from the Ford Foundation. Ravven then spent the academic year 2004 - 2005 analyzing how to apply Spinoza's philosophy to the present. She also expanded her cultural horizons to engage Buddhist, Muslim, and Navajo philosophy and religion in an expansive vision of what a culturally broader ethics might look like. Traveling the country, she met with Muslim and Buddhist scholars and immigrants and with Navajo scholars and medicine men and women.
Beginning in spring semester 2006, Ravven will be writing a first chapter in which she exposes the Christian presuppositions and origins of the standard way that both philosophers and people in general in the West think about ethical issues.
In October Ravven received word that the project she developed during the planning year had received funding for 2006 - 2008. Ravven will be on research leave from Hamilton during the academic years 2006 -2007 and 2007 - 2008.
