About Sam Rocha

I’m an academic, author, and musician. My interests involve and revolve — and evolve — around philosophy, music, and religion. In philosophy, my work is in the philosophy of education as it intersects with the life and thought of William James, personalism, and aesthetic phenomenology. In music, I sing and play guitar, performing blues, soul, Latin jazz, and folk music (especially Mexican folk music). In religion, I write and speak about Catholicism and religious culture and experience. These three main interests intersect frequently, constantly. Most importantly, I am a husband and a father: my wife and I have two young boys, Tomas and Gabriel.

ACADEMIC:

Most of my academic work is housed in a field called “philosophy of education.” I did my undergraduate work (in philosophy) at Franciscan University of Steubenville, a masters (in education) at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN), and received another masters and my Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in philosophy of education. For two years I was the Owen Duston Visiting Professor in the philosophy department and teacher education program at Wabash College and I’m presently an assistant professor in the educational foundations and research graduate program at the University of North Dakota. I’m also the president of the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education. Click here to view and/or download my CV.

AUTHOR:
Almost all my academic articles, essays, and reviews can be found online, and most of them for free. I also try to write more than the usual academic fare, including all my writing at this site and contributions to Contending Modernities, a blog at the Kroc Institute of the University of Notre Dame, First Things, and a few others. (I also blogged at Vox Nova for three years; you can find all of that here.) I’ve published two books thus far, both can be found at the publications page, and have three more books forthcoming: A Primer for Philosophy and Education, Liturgy as Mystagogy: An Introduction to a Curriculum of Life, and Education, Study, and the Person: Towards a Folkloric Phenomenology.

MUSICIAN:

I began playing guitar at the age of 5, and began singing soon thereafter. My musical influences range from folk, Latin, funk, soul, hip-hop, and jazz, but my roots are in church music and the Mexican folk tradition. Over the past ten years, I’ve performed with various ensembles playing everything from gospel and contemporary Christian music, blues, pop, neo-soul/nu jazz, Latin folk, and Latin jazz. I’ve played with the likes of Othello Molineaux, Eddie Bayard, Eddy Martinez, Pharez Whitted and I’ve been on bills including The Roots, Floetry, Joe Lovano (Us Five), and more at the Charleston Wine and Jazz Festival, Parkersburg Multicultural Festival, Columbus Latino Festival, Columbus Jazz Festival, Vonn Jazz Lounge (Columbus, OH), Old Town School of Folk Music (Chicago, IL), Twins Jazz (Washington DC), Baltimore Museum of Art, Cafe El Sol (Milwaukee, WI), Nighttown (Cleveland, OH), Hartford Jazz Society, First Night (Knoxville, TN), Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies (Crawfordville, IN), and more.

SPEAKER, TOO:
I frequently give talks, seminars, and keynotes at schools, churches, and conferences. This past year I spoke at Denison University, Franciscan University of Steubenville, St. Boniface Catholic Church, Catholic Church of St. Paul, the Philosophy of Education Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, and more.

BOOKING:
I frequently book gigs, talks, writing commissions, and more — especially hybrid projects. I am especially looking to book shows and talks around Grand Forks, Fargo, and the Twin Cities. Feel free to contact me.

COMMENTS POLICY:

I don’t have one. Do just about anything you like, provided that you’re a person and not a spambot. I tend to see outrageous or abusive or even illegal comments as exercises in self-humiliation. They often show what cannot quite be said. Plus, by rejecting the artificial prescriptions of rules and protocol, more natural ones will be allowed to operate. Anarchy is just another form of social order. (No, I’m not an anarchist, at least not on most days.) If something arises with enough urgency that merits something like a “policy” then I suppose I’ll make one up. But I am much more inclined to delete any problems just as arbitrarily as I might make up a policy, appealing to nothing other than what seems to follow from the common-law, implicit order of things around here and elsewhere.