Honors Student Success Stories

The Honors Program at SXU prepares students for lifetime achievement. Check out some of our student profiles below to see how they see how they succeed during and after their studies at Saint Xavier.

Amanda Holmes, Philosophy, Class of 2010

Amanda Holmes graduated from SXU in 2010 with a major in Philosophy and was a part of the Honors Program. She recently won a Fulbright Research Grant in 2017, after applying and making it as a semi-finalist in 2016. Since graduating from SXU, she received her master's degree at Miami University in Ohio and before moving to Berlin, Germany where she now resides and continues to work towards her Ph.D. through Villanova University.

"As a Fulbright Scholar, I will continue my dissertation research, which engages the theory of the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy. The Ljubljana School is an important development in contemporary European philosophy and its main aim is to bring together the philosophy of German idealism, Marxism and psychoanalytic theories as a means of analysis of contemporary social, cultural and political phenomena.

My dissertation project, tentatively titled, "The Structure of Anxiety and the Status of the Object: Kant, Heidegger, Lacan" develops a theory of anxiety as a structure of reason. My project focuses on the relations between phenomenology and psychoanalysis to consider the ways in which seemingly abstracted conceptions of reason entail a hidden, affective negativity. This project connects 18th century German philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, a combination for which there is no better paradigm than the one set by the Ljubljana School over the past several decades."

Holmes accredits some of her success to the professors in the Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology Department and the Honors Program, who she says were "great teachers, supportive mentors, good friends and ultimately really important role models." As a student, she was able to travel to Spain for a semester and also learn how to do independent research projects.

Professor Thomas Thorp spoke kindly of Holmes' achievement, saying "Amanda has been making us proud ever since her first day in her first philosophy class, but this Fulbright Research Grant really is a capstone achievement of her education and her doctoral studies." The entire SXU Honors Department congratulates Holmes and looks forward to following her future successes.