My name is Corey Beckford, and I am currently a doctoral candidate in Philosophy at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. I received my BA in Philosophy from Lake Forest College in 2019, and my MA from Brandeis University in 2021.
I specialize in Immanuel Kant’s aesthetic and moral philosophies, Aesthetics and Nature, and African American Philosophy. Below is a sample of my publications and conferences.
Research & Conferences
Publications
Corey A. Beckford, Faked nature? A Kantian Proto-Environmental Aesthetics, The British Journal of Aesthetics, 2025;, ayae057, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayae057
Zhu R., & Beckford C. (2017). “Reply to Steven Burik.” Philosophy East and West 68 (1):271-276.
Conferences
Upcoming
“Race and Natural Predispositions in Teleological Judgment” Paper for the Slavery and Abolition in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy Conference 2026 at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.
“Non-Ideal Beauty? Race and Aesthetic Universalism in Kant’s Aesthetics” for the Winter School of the European Consortium for Political Research, Kantian Standing Group 2025. Sponsored by The University of Liverpool, England in association with the Liverpool-Oxford-St Andrews Kantian (LOSAK) Research Centre.
Past
“Kant, Race, and Aesthetics: A Quest for a Black Radical Critique of Kant’s Aesthetics and Raciology” for the North American Kant Society; Topic: Rethinking Kant’s Philosophy in Light of His Raciology, APA Central Division Conference 2024, New Orleans, Louisiana.
“Kant, Alain Locke, and Cosmopolitanism” — 45th-Collegium Phaenomenologicum, Participant Conference, Summer 2023.
“What is the worth of a negro?: A possible Kantian Answer” – APA Eastern Division Conference 2022, Baltimore, Invited Symposium: Racism and the History of Philosophy Fall 2022.
“Beautiful Chaos: Resolving Du Bois and Locke With Stand-up Comedy” APA Eastern Division Conference 2023, Montreal, Canada, International Association of the Philosophy of Humor Spring 2023.
“A Phenomenology of stand-up Comedy: Richard Pryor, Heidegger, and the disclosure of (comedic) truth” — APA Central Division Conference 2022, Chicago, IL for the International Association of the Philosophy of Humor Spring 2022..
“A Mark of a Good Soul”: A Kantian Account of Environmental Aesthetic Appreciation – APA Eastern Division Conference 2023, Montreal, Canada Graduate Poster Session Spring 2023.
Commentary
Comments on “Cugoano’s Distributive Approach to Responsibility” by Iziah Topete, APA Central Division Conference 2024, New Orleans, Louisiana.