Faculty & Staff
Ruth L. Smith
Associate Professor
Office: Salisbury Laboratories, 108
Phone: +1-508-831-5214
Fax: +1-508-831-5932
rsmith@wpi.edu
Related Information
Educational Background
- B.A., East Tennessee State University, 1969
- M.A., Ohio University, 1971
- M.T.S., Harvard University Divinity School, 1976
- Ph.D., Boston University, 1982
Research & Teaching Interests
Religious and philosophical ethics, philosophy of religion, rhetoric, religion and culture
IQP Advising Interests
Ethics and society, museum artifacts and cultural representation, bioethics, urban institutions
Research
In conjunction with earlier critical concerns with assumptions of modern religious and philosophical moral theory, current work addresses criteria for membership, metaphoric configuration, sacrifice, and argument-consent structure in early modern and modern social contract agreements, considering such agreements as a grammar or “form of life” (Wittgenstein)