Associate Professor Mariana Ortega to join Philosophy Department in January 2018

Mariana Ortega will be joining us in January 2018 as Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.  Prof. Ortega is currently on the faculty at John Carroll University; she is the author of In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self and the director of the Latina Feminism Roundtable.

Prof. Ortega writes: “Existential phenomenological concerns have always been at the heart of my work.  Whether I am thinking about the intersection of various social identities and power structures or the way in which visual representations of those identities are deployed in support of projects aimed at further othering those at the margins, I engage questions of existence and lived experience—not in order to reify such experience but to learn how it can inform and improve our philosophical investigations.  My recent book, In Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self, presents a theory of multiplicitous selfhood informed by both women of color theorizing, in particular Latina feminisms, and Heideggerian phenomenology.

I have also just begun a new book project that examines questions at the intersection between visuality, practices of othering in connection to race and sexuality, and ignorance. I aim at developing a notion of “aesthetic ignorance” that stands to contribute to current discussions on the epistemology of ignorance.”

We look forward to welcoming Mariana next January!