Robert
Valgenti
Full Professor of Philosophy Lebanon Valley College Visiting Faculty
Robert T. Valgenti, Ph.D., is a philosopher, teacher, and translator with over 20 years of experience in higher education. His research interests include contemporary Italian philosophy, hermeneutics, biopolitics, and the philosophy of food, with recent publications on the work of Gianni Vattimo, Roberto Esposito, Nietzsche, and the philosophies of food, humor, and artistic improvisation. He is the translator of several essays and books by Italian philosophers, most notably Luigi Pareyson’s Truth and Interpretation (2013), Gianni Vattimo’s Of Reality (2016), and Gaetano Chiurazzi’s The Experience of Truth (2017) and Dynamis: Ontology of the Incommensurable (2021). From 2006-2020 he taught philosophy at Lebanon Valley College, where he was Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy. He was the director and founder of E.A.T. (engage, analyze, transform), an undergraduate research group at Lebanon Valley College whose interventions aim to improve the ethical, environmental, cultural, and nutritional profile of the college dining experience. Currently, he is a member of The Menus of Change University Research Collaborative (www.moccollaborative.org) and a desk editor for the journal Gastronomica (www.gastronomica.org).
COURSES
This course is premised on the notion that sustainability represents a fundamental paradox: at the current moment, sustainability presents itself as a goal that can only be achieved through a radical transformation of the ways that we relate to each other and the environment—sustainability is premised upon the unavoidability of transformation. The goal of this course is therefore not to import one or several ethical theories into the world of business and commerce in order to form moral judgments about business practices, or to train business leaders to be more efficient decision makers. Our task is to identify and navigate ethical dilemmas that arise when we entertain sustainability as a guiding principle for our individual, organizational, and global actions.
Sustainability Transition ManagementSustainability Transition Management (Part-time)
