Rate My Professor Brett Buchanan

Dr. Brett Buchanan serves as Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Concordia University of Edmonton, with a faculty appointment in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. A philosopher with broad interdisciplinary interests, he brings expertise in contemporary continental philosophy, ethics, environmental humanities, and animal studies. He was appointed Dean in 2022. Prior to his arrival at Concordia University of Edmonton, Dr. Buchanan was a tenured Full Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Laurentian University from 2006 to 2021. During that time, he served as Director of the School of the Environment from 2014 to 2020 and held multiple terms as Chair of the Department of Philosophy. He also supervised graduate students through Laurentian’s Humanities M.A. and Human Studies Ph.D. programs.

Dr. Buchanan earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from DePaul University in 2006, an M.A. in Theory and Criticism from the University of Western Ontario in 1999, and a B.A. (Honours) in Psychology from the University of Alberta in 1997. His scholarly contributions include the 2008 book Onto-Ethologies: The Animal Environments of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze, published by SUNY Press, as well as the 2016 translation of Vinciane Despret’s What Would Animals Say if We Asked the Right Questions? for the University of Minnesota Press. He has edited multiple volumes and journal issues on philosophical ethology and field philosophy. Dr. Buchanan has held visiting fellowships and research positions at institutions including Curtin University, the École normale supérieure in Paris, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, and the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at Western University.