Deepanwita Dasgupta, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Biographical Sketch:

Ph.D. University of Minnesota, 2010, with a focus on philosophy of science, especially the dynamics of mental modeling implicit in scientific reasoning. Earlier, another Ph.D. in philosophy of language from Jadavpur University, India. Dasgupta joined the Philosophy Department at UTEP in Fall 2015. Her research interests are in the philosophy of science and history of science, with a particular focus on the non-Western contexts of scientific practice, especially the Indian sub-continent at the turn of the 20^th century. Her 2021 book Creativity from the Periphery, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, presents the story of a nascent physics community in India during 1920-40 by using a cognitive-philosophical framework. To explain those contexts, Dasgupta proposes the idea of peripheral creativity, i.e., cases in which a hard constraint turns out to be a great resource for creativity, giving rise to new lines of thought. This reasoning allows her to look outside the contexts of the privileged scientific communities in Europe and North America, and look into various modest and frugal practices, and see them also as examples of scientific reasoning. With this idea, she is now working on a second book manuscript, which formulates a vision for the 21^st-century science both as a cognitively diverse as well as a wisdom-producing practice. A part of this project is to launch a website titled Science in the 21^st Century, which will feature short articles, columns, future reflections as well as potential ideas for research drawn from both the sciences and the humanities. Dasgupta visited the Center for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen, Norway in summer 2019, also presented her work at the Inter-University Center, Dubrovnik, and Cardiff University, UK. At UTEP, she regularly teaches courses on philosophy of science, science and ethics, and seeks to promote a conversational interface between the humanities and the sciences.

Areas of Research Specialization:
Philosophy and History of Science, Cognitive Studies of Science, Science and Culture

Office:
Department of Philosophy
College of Liberal Arts
University of Texas at El Paso
Worrell Hall 112
El Paso, TX 79968

Phone:
915/747-6263

Email:
ddasgupta@utep.edu