Faculty Bio

Dr. Trent Davis grew up on the east coast of Canada, where he learned the importance of both working hard and maintaining a sense of humour. After completing two Bachelor’s degrees at Memorial University, he returned to graduate school and completed a Master’s and finally a Ph.D in Education at York University in the philosophy of education. His research interests involve realism, ethics and politics, pragmatism and education for democracy, existentialism, education for meaning, learning in therapy and learning from literature. He has published book reviews, response papers, original peer reviewed articles, and an edited collection on contemporary democratic education. Currently he teaches courses in the philosophical and historical foundations of education.

• “The World Well Found’: Critical Thinking in the Contact Zone.”” Philosophy of Education , Volume 78, Number 3. 2022.
• “Adventures in Teaching at Home: “Mr. Knuckles” Becomes ‘Mr. Knucklehead’”. Antistasis, Volume 10, Number 3. December 2020.
• “Between the Teacher’s Past and the Student’s Future: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Pedagogical Presence.” Philosophy of Education 2016.
• “Considering Perspectives on transgender inclusion in Canadian Catholic elementary schools: Perspectives, challenges, and opportunities.” Cory Wright-Maley, Trent Davis, Eileen M Gonzalez, and Ryan Colwell.(eds.) The Journal of Social Studies Research 2016.
• “The Aims of Education in an Information Age.” Antistasis, Volume 4, Number 2. September 2014.
• “Non-Ideal Teacher Layoffs in an Unjust World.” Philosophy of Education 2014.
• “Generalization, Justification, and the Waywardness of Teaching.”Philosophy of Education 2013.
• “Comprehension, Morality, and the Demands of Incompleteness.” Philosophy of Education 2012.
• “Conservatism.” The Greenwood Dictionary of Education, 2011.
• “For Credibility’s Sake Let’s Start with the Bad News: A Pessimistic Pedagogy in the Age of Spectacle.” Philosophy of Education 2011.
• “Are Schools Deteriorating? Learning, Education, and the Problem of Scarcity.” Philosophy of Education 2010.
• “Can Literature Really Make a Difference? Toward a Chastened View of the Role of Fiction in Democracy.” Journal of Educational Controversy ,Winter 2010.
• “Idealism Revisited: Michael Oakeshott’s “Conversation” and the Question of Being-Together.” Philosophy of Education 2009.
• “The Tears that a Civil Servant Cannot See – Re-Thinking Civic Virtue in Democratic Education: A Levinasian Perspective.” Philosophy of Education 2008.
• BOOKS: Teaching for Democracy in an Age of Economic Disparity. Cory Wright-Maley & Trent Davis, (eds.) Routledge, 2016.
• BOOK REVIEWS: The Heythrop Journal , July 2017, Volume 58, number 4. Kierkegaard, Communication, and Virtue: Authorship as Edification. By Mark A. Tietjen. Pp. x, 156, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2013.
• Kierkegaard: Exposition and Critique. By Daphne Hampson. Pp. xii, 344, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Kierkegaard’s Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art (Tome IV: The Anglophone World) Edited by Jon Stewart. Pp. xv, 239, Farnham, Surrey, Ashgate, 2013.
• Starting with Kierkegaard. By Patrick Sheil. Pp xi, 172, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011.
• The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard. By Richard McCombs. Pp. xii, 244, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2013.