It is with great sadness that I report the passing of our colleague Thomas Joseph Nenon (1951 – 2025), Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Memphis, who died after a short illness, bravely borne, on April 4 2025, aged 73 years. Tom was very active in SPEP, attending the annual meetings regularly from 1989 to 2023. He served as a member of the SPEP Executive Committee from 1995 to 1998, and his Departmentwas three times local host for SPEP meetings in Memphis in 1991, 2004, and 2017. Appreciated for his knowledge of Chairperson’s rules, he was regularly appointed Parliamentarian at the SPEP Business meetings.
Tom Nenon was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1951. He grew up in Memphis and studied at Regis College, Denver, graduating with BA in 1972. After a stint studying German in Germany, Tom attended Boston College, graduating with his MA in Philosophy in 1974. He then studied at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany, where he graduated with PhD in 1983. He worked as an Editor in the Husserl Archives, Freiburg, from 1982 to 1985, responsible, along with his co‑editor Hans Rainer Sepp, for two major Husserliana volumes of Husserl’s selected essays and occasional lectures, Aufsätze und Vorträge 1911‑21, Husserliana, Vol. XXV; and Husserliana, Vol. XXVII: Aufsätze und Vorträge 1922‑37. He was also an Instructor in the Philosophy Department in Freiburg.
Tom moved to the University of Memphis in 1985, initially as Visiting Assistant Professor; and then as Assistant (1986-1991), Associate (1991-1997), and Full Professor (1997-2022). He served as Director of the Center for Humanities, Local Coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus Consortium, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (2013-2018), Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs, Interim Provost (2012-2013), and finally Provost and Vice-President (2019-2022), where one of his demanding duties was managing the Covid outbreak. Tom held a number of visiting positions, including Guest Professor in the University of Wüppertal in 2010; and the Inaugural Professor at the first Workshop of the Symposia Phaenomenologica Asiatica, Master Class in Phenomenology for Asian Scholars, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2007. He was named Distinguished University Professor from 2022 and he retired from teaching in 2024.
Tom’s publications include his monograph, Objektivität und endliche Erkenntnis: Kants transzendentalphilosophische Theorie der Wahrheit (Freiburg/Munich: Alber Verlag 1986), and many edited volumes including Kant, Kantianism, and Idealism: The Origins of Continental Philosophy, History of Continental Philosophy, Vol I (London: Acumen Press, 2010); Advancing Phenomenology: Essays in Honor of Lester Embree (co-edited with Philip Blosser) (Springer, 2010); Husserl’s Ideen (co-edited with Lester Embree) (Springer, 2012); Kontexte des Leiblichen (co-edited with Kathrin Nielsen and Korel Novotný) (Nordhausen: Bautz Verlag, 2016); Logos and Aisthesis: Phenomenology and the Arts, (co-edited with Kwok-ying Lau) (Dordrecht: Springer, 2020); and Thomas Seebohm on the Foundations of the Sciences: An Analysis and Critical Appraisal (Berlin/New York: Springer Verlag, 2020). He was longtime Treasurer of the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology (CARP). He was also an active member of the Husserl Circle, which he hosted at the University of Memphis in 1999. He also hosted the Spindel Conference in Memphis on three occasions, as well as the International Kant Conference in Memphis in 1995. He participated in the Collegium Phaenomenologicum (Perugia, Italy), and in many conferences all over the world including Japan, Peru, China, Korea, Australia, and Europe.
Despite a demanding career as a university administrator (eventually appointed as Provost of the University of Memphis), Tom continued to make extensive and enduring contributions to phenomenology nationally and internationally, especially with his writings on Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, and transcendental philosophy. He was a wonderfully supportive and inspiring teacher and a thoughtful colleague always eager to assist. He was an extremely effective academic administrator with a gift for budgetary and financial matters. In person, he was an enthusiastic, entertaining and engaging companion. He was tireless and selfless in his promotion of phenomenology, including editing Festschrift volumes for Lester Embree and Thomas Seebohm and translating into English two books by Werner Marx, his mentor in Freiburg. He is especially appreciated by colleagues in Asia for his efforts in setting up PEACE, Phenomenology in East Asia Circle, which brought together phenomenologists from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and the Philippines. A tall and imposing presence, with a ready smile, he was a competitive college athlete (swimming, waterpolo, track & field) and an enthusiastic sportsperson, who played soccer weekly until recently and followed the Memphis Tigers. He is survived by his loving wife Monika, their daughter Christina, and his three beloved grandchildren. His likes will not be here again. May he rest in peace.
—Dermot Moran, Boston College