Dwayne Tunstall earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2007). His main areas of research are in 20^th century Continental philosophy (especially post-Husserlian phenomenology and religious existentialism), American philosophy (especially American pragmatism and 20^th century American idealist tradition), and Africana philosophy (especially African American philosophy). He also has research interests in contemporary political theology, naturalistic theology/religious humanism, and religious ethics.

He is the author of several articles and book reviews on 20^th century Continental philosophy, contemporary African American philosophy, and American philosophy. These articles and book reviews have been published in several philosophy and interdisciplinary journals, including C.L.R. James Journal: A Publication of the Caribbean Philosophical Association, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Philosophy Today, The Pluralist, and Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. His first book, Yes, But Not Quite: Encountering Josiah Royce’s Ethico-Religious Insight, was published by Fordham University Press in April 2009.

Currently, Professor Tunstall is working on two article-length manuscripts. The first manuscript, tentatively entitled “Conjuring Phenomenology: Re-conceiving the Phenomenological Epoché,” re-conceives the phenomenological epoché from the vantage point of contemporary Africana philosophy, with special emphasis on (1) the religious notion of “conjuring,” as articulated in Theophus H. Smith’s Conjuring Culture; (2) ego-displacing techniques, as articulated by Paget Henry in Calibean’s Reason; and (3) the philosophical method of “ontological suspension” in Lewis R. Gordon’s Disciplinary Decadence. The second manuscript traces the indirect influence Schleiermacher’s philosophical theology had on the Boston personalist tradition in the late nineteenth-century and the first decade of the twentieth century for an anthology on Schleiermacher’s influence on American religious thought.

In addition to these article-length manuscripts, Professor Tunstall has completed a book-length manuscript. Its tentative title is Staying Persons in Late Western Modernity: Thoughts on Metaphysics, Faith, and Antiblack Racism. In it he constructs the theoretical foundation for an antiracist religious theism from a synthesis of Gabriel Marcel’s religious existentialism, Lewis R. Gordon’s teleological suspension of philosophy, and Gordon’s existential phenomenological account of anti-black racism.