Allison Sara Kuklok, who earned her doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University in June of 2013, has been named Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Michael's College, starting this semester.
Dr. Kuklok, a resident of Winooski, wrote her dissertation on the British philosopher John Locke whose work is said to lie at the foundation of modern philosophical empiricism and political liberalism. Her dissertation title is “Conceptualism and Objectivity in Locke’s Account of Natural Kinds.” Her areas of specialization are Early Modern Philosophy, as well as Kant, Metaphysics, and Moral and Political Philosophy.
Dr. Kuklok earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy, summa cum laude, from Wellesley College, where she earned a 3.9 GPA and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.
Dr. Kuklok was awarded the Graduate Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship at Harvard, 2012-13, the Martin Prize Fellowship from the Harvard Philosophy Department, 2011-12, the Andrew Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, 2002-03, and First Prize, Three Generations Writing Competition, Wellesley, 2000. She was twice the recipient of the Bok Center Teaching Certificate of Excellence and Distinction in Teaching, Harvard, 2008, 2009.
Dr. Kuklok was teaching fellow for 11 different Harvard courses from 2006 to 2010. She gave five refereed presentations in 2012 in Bucharest, at Princeton, Dartmouth, Dalhousie University and at the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Conference. Her topic was “Strings, Physies, and Hogs’ Bristles: Objective Kinds in Locke.” She also gave nine invited talks at the Harvard Workshop in Metaphysics and Epistemology.
As a Wellesley student, Dr. Kuklok came to believe in the liberal arts. “That experience was transformative,” she said. “I think the small liberal arts college is unique, as a community devoted to your spiritual and intellectual development—I like being part of that community,” she said.
As a Harvard graduate student, Dr. Kuklok was also an official Resident Tutor (in place of any RAs) in a residence hall for 32 undergraduates.
“I got to know Harvard students who were developing as people, and got to know them intellectually. At a liberal arts college, that’s what you do—help them develop in lots of ways.”
“In my research, I’m interested in the general question of categories, like human being, mammal, gold…are these categories of the nature of things, their essences? Contemporary philosophy,” she said, “is skeptical about how we abstract from language to reality. The world doesn’t have these innate categories—many philosophers say there is no innate link, but I think,” she said, “that Locke did view the world of real essences.”