Joseph C. Berendzen graduated with a BA, majors in Philosophy and History, from Saint Louis University in 1997 and received his PhD from Villanova University in 2002. He has served on the faculty of the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans since 2004. His research focuses on 19th and 20th Century French and German philosophy, with emphases on phenomenology (especially the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty), German idealism, and Frankfurt School critical theory.