Justina Berskyte

Research Overview

I am interested in language that has a subjective element (e.g. predicates of personal taste and expressives) as well as, socially relevant language (e.g. slurs, gender terms, harmful language).

In my PhD thesis, I put forth a novel hybrid theory - Expressive-Relativism - explaining the semantics of predicates of personal taste and expressives. My PhD thesis was supervised by Graham Stevens and Andrew Koontz-Garboned. My PhD was funded by the School of Social Sciences with the 4th year partly funded by The Royal Institute of Philosophy bursary.

In the future, I wish to explore harmful language as its uses online.

Research interests

Philosophy of Language, Semantics, Subjective Language, Contextualism, Semantic Relativism, Expressivism, Slurs, Offense and Derogation, Hate Speech.

Education

I received my BA, MA and PhD from The University of Manchester.

Contact Details

justina.berskyte@manchester.ac.uk

2022/2023

• Teaching Assistant for Philosophy of Psychology (3^rd-year UG, Second Semester).
• Teaching Assistant for Religious Language and Metaethics (3^rd-year UG, Second Semester).
• Teaching Assistant for Language of Oppression (3^rd-year UG, First Semester).
• MA Landmark Papers seminar on expressives (PGR, First Semester).
• Supervise undergraduate dissertations.

2021/2022

• Lecturer for Formal Logic Teaching Assistant for Philosophy of Psychology (2^nd-year UG, Second Semester)
• Teaching Assistant for Language and Oppression (3^rd-year UG, Second Semester).
• A lecture on the varieties of slurs for Language and Oppression (3^rd-year UG, Second Semester).
• MA Landmark Papers seminar on slurs (PGR, First Semester).
• Teaching Assistant for Philosophy of Psychology (3^rd-year UG, First Semester)
• Supervise undergraduate dissertations.
•  

2021

• Teaching Assistant for Formal Logic (2^nd-year UG, Second Semester)
  
  

2019/2020

• Teaching Assistant for Philosophy of Religion (2^nd-year UG,  First Semester)
• Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Philosophy of Mind (1^st-year UG, First Semester)
  
  2019
  Guest Lecture for Formal Logic (2^nd-year UG)

2018/19
Teaching Assistant for Critical Thinking (1^st-year UG, First Semester)
Teaching Assistant for Formal Logic (2^nd-year UG, Second Semester)      

Upcoming Talks

“The Good, The Bad and The Harmful: From Restricted to Standard Uses of Slurs”

• Research Seminar, January 2023 (Bristol, UK)

Past Talks 

"True to a Racist? Relativism and Slurs"

• SEFA 2022, Symposium Assessment-Sensitivity: New Developments and Application, December 2022 (Santiago de Compostela, Spain)

“The Good, The Bad and The Harmful: From Restricted to Standard Uses of Slurs”

• Research Seminar, November 2022 (Manchester, UK).

"The Inexperienced Swearer: Perspectival Plurality, Expressive-Relativism and Expressives".

• Workshop on Perspectival Plurality, May 2022 (Warsaw, Poland).

“Slurs and Slurring Metaphors”  (Joint Presentation with Dr Graham Stevens)

• Value in Language Value in Language, March 2021 (Bratislava, Slovakia, conducted over Zoom).

“Jeremy is a...

Expressive-Relativism and Expressive Predicates in Copular Positions"

• XSLMFCE, Symposium on Expressives and Context Sensitivity, November 2021 (Spain, Salamanca).
• Research Seminar, March 2021 (Manchester, UK, conducted over Zoom).

"What the fuck are we disagreeing about?"

• Start of the Year Welcome Event, September 2019 (Manchester, UK)

"Rollercoasters are still not fun for Mary"

• University of Manchester Reading Party,  June 2018 (Ludlow, UK)

“Faultless Disagreement without Contradiction” (Joint presentation with Dr Graham Stevens)

• PhD Research Seminar, December 2018 (Manchester, UK)

“Rollercoasters are not fun for Mary: Against Indexical Contextualism”

• PhD Research Seminar, March 2018 (Manchester, UK)
• SpinFest, May 2018 (York, UK)
• CCC Conference, July 2018 (Warsaw, Poland)

2020/21

The Royal Institute of Philosophy Bursary

2018/19

Teaching Assistant Award