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Joseph Petek promoted to Associate Editor of the Critical Edition of Whitehead

I am very happy to announce that we have promoted our longtime Assistant Editor, Dr. Joe Petek, to Associate Editor of the Critical Edition of Whitehead. After working part-time with us for nine years while earning his doctorate, Joe will now work full-time for the Edition.

It is only through the generous and unfailing support of our donors and supporters that we are able to take this exciting step of hiring a full-time Associate Editor. Digitizing, transcribing, verifying, and editing the materials for the Critical Edition is time-consuming and expensive. If you are able, please help with a donation today.

Born and raised in Sacramento, California, Joe graduated magna cum laude from Marquette University with a triple-major in Communication Studies, Writing-Intensive English, and Theology in 2007. After attending Chicago Divinity School from 2009–2011, where he studied under Franklin I. Gamwell, Joe began attending Claremont School of Theology in fall 2011, where he studied under Roland Faber.

Joe was hired as an Editorial Assistant for the Critical Edition in February 2013, and quickly became an indispensable asset to the project, helping to develop digitization, archive, and transcription protocols while displaying strong organizational skills and a keen eye for editing. After many invaluable contributions, Joe was invited to serve as the Edition’s Chief Archivist and Assistant Editor, a role in which he has supervised half a dozen Editorial Assistants, assisted in the editing of the first volume of Whitehead’s Harvard Lectures (HL1), and was a full named editor on the second volume of Whitehead’s Harvard Lectures (HL2). He is currently editing the first of two volumes of Whitehead’s Collected Papers with Robert J. Valenza and myself.

Joe defended his dissertation, Unearthing the Unknown Whitehead: An Examination of the Significance of the Critical Edition of Whitehead, in December 2021. It is expected to be published as a book in Lexington’s Contemporary Whitehead Studies series. Other publications include Whitehead at Harvard, 1924–1925 (co-edited with myself, 2020), Rethinking Whitehead’s Symbolism (co-edited with Roland Faber and Jeffrey A. Bell, 2017), and a forthcoming article in Process Studies 51.1, “Religion and Hatred: Examining an Unpublished Whitehead Essay.”

Join us in congratulating Joe on this well-deserved promotion and what it means for the bright future of the Critical Edition of Whitehead.

Brian G. Henning
Founder & Executive Editor, Critical Edition of Whitehead
Professor of Philosophy, Gonzaga University

11 thoughts on “Joseph Petek promoted to Associate Editor of the Critical Edition of Whitehead

  1. Joe Petek has been doing wonderful work. Congrats, Joe!
    We do have to broaden and deepen applications of process philosophy in various other disciplines, I agree. But I suggest: What is more important is to lift Whitehead’s process philosophy out of the debilitating analytic and pragmatic clutches of the past one century of academic philosophies.
    Today analytic and scientific metaphysics already flood the arena. Hence, this is the time, in my opinion, to do process philosophy, if possible in renewed ways. Whitehead’s metaphysics is more science-based and cosmologically adaptable than most science-based metaphysics today!!
    Wish you and the CENTER FOR PROCESS STUDIES all the best in the endeavour….
    Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph. D., Dr. phil.

  2. Heartiest congratulations, Joe! You are such an inspiration! Best Regards, ~Ruth Chadd, CST PhD Student, Process Studies

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