Faculty Profile: Ed Emmer

Ed Emmer’s diverse interests and involvement have made him a well known professor, discussion leader, and community figure at Emporia State.

“He’s a great addition to the department,” said Charles Brown, social sciences professor. “Students love him for both the serious, higher level courses as well as the introductory level courses.

Emmer was born in New York City, where he lived briefly as a child until his family moved to Indiana. Though his time in Indiana was punctuated by time spent studying in Brazil during high school, Emmer completed his undergraduate degree in art in Indiana with a Portuguese minor. Once Emmer graduated, he decided to return to New York City.

He worked in art museums and theaters after returning to the Big Apple. Though he found work that related to his undergraduate degree, Emmer wanted to pursue philosophy.

“I was always thinking about it when I got back,” Emmer said.

He would then go on to complete his doctorate at Stonybrook University in New York, including three years spent studying philosophy in Germany.

Emmer moved to Emporia to accept a position at ESU teaching philosophy after a short stint of adjunct teaching. For the New York City native, Emporia seemed an unlikely place to call home. Emmer said that he was pleasantly surprised about the atmosphere at ESU.

“Many of my preconceptions simply weren’t met,” Emmer said. ]

For instance, Emmer said that he taught an introductory course in which part of the material focused on early Christianity and gnostic Christianity. After the course, a student introduced herself as a gnostic Christian and voiced her interest in the topic.

“If anyone had told me, a New York native, that I would meet my first gnostic Christian in Emporia, Kansas, I wouldn’t have believed them,” Emmer said.

Because ESU does not offer a philosophy major, Emmer has an interesting course load.

“I get to teach the introductory courses and three really specialized, high level courses,” Emmer said. “Because in the higher courses I only have students who really want to be there, I can be as ambitious as I want to be.”

Emmer’s interest in art has led to his creation of some very interesting and unique course offerings. This semester, Emmer’s course materials include documentaries such as “Who The F*** Is Jackson Pollock?” The film focuses on a truck driver who bought a painting as a gag gift at a flea market, and the painting is later suspected to be a Jackson Pollock painting.

“It’s really interesting to see this plain truck driver go head to head with art critics,” Emmer said.

Emmer also shows the documentary “Helvetica”, which tells the history of the Helvetica font and interviews its biggest fans and critics.

“You wouldn’t think they would be able to make a documentary, or even a whole film, about a font,” Emmer said.

Emmer’s ambition has been noticed by students and faculty alike.

“His course wasn’t really what I expected,” said Carlos Pringle, junior history major. “It really challenged us to think outside the box, to take what he taught us in the classroom and apply it to things we heard or saw that day. I really enjoyed it.”

Outside of the classroom, Emmer’s involvement with the Philosophy Club has also made an impact with students and philosophy aficionados.

“Dr. Emmer puts a lot of time and effort into the Socrates Cafe,” Brown said.

The Socrates Cafe meets regularly to discuss varying issues in relation to philosophy. For instance, the most recent meeting began with the issue of gun control, but the conversation turned into a discussion about the ethics of polygamy.

Emmer also recently hosted an art forum entitled “Kanst, Kant and Kitsch.” The forum allowed art and philosophy majors to attend and discuss philosophical implications of its relation to political function and the traditional definition of beauty.

Immanuel Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” is not light reading, but Emmer and students have worked through it and other philosophical texts in reading groups.

“The first time I did one, I just had one student,” Emmer said. “It was over the summer. It took a month and a half at about six hours a day to get through Hagel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’, but you’ve got to begin somewhere.”

Though Emmer’s interests are varied, he admits that he has a favorite course offering.

“My favorite subject is 19th century philosophy,” Emmer said. The course explores philosophy’s relation to master-slave relationship in the 19th century as well as its ties to the abolition movement.

“Many early abolitionists were pacifists,” Emmer said. “Both sides would quote the Bible to prove their points. We look at the use of Plato and Aristotle in the arguments over slavery.”

The level of involvement students have lent outside of the classroom to their academic interests has impressed Emmer.

“Students can get an amazing education from [ESU],” Emmer said. “But a lot of the opportunities available to them are ones they find outside of the classroom.”