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John Christman

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John Christman

John Christman

Director of the Penn State Humanities Institute; Professor of Philosophy, Political Science and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
105 Ihlseng Cottage
jpc11@psu.edu
(814) 865-4190

Education

B.A., University of New Orleans
M.A., University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago

Professional Bio

Areas of Specialization

  • Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy
  • Moral Theory
  • Figures in the History of Political Philosophy
  • Feminist Social and Political Philosophy

Recent Courses

  • Freedom and Slavery
  • Rousseau's Social and Political Philosophy

Recent Publications

  • Reconceiving Freedom from the Shadows of Slavery: Liberty in a Non-ideal World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025
  • Social and Political Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction, 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2026.
  • (ed.) Positive Liberty: Past, Present, and Future. Cambridge University Press, 2022.
  • “Freedom and Social Practices” Southern Journal of Philosophy 61, S1 (September, 2023) 8-23.
  • *”Rousseau’s Silence on Trans-Atlantic Slavery: Philosophical Implications” European Journal of Philosophy, 30 no. 4 (2022), 1458-1472.
  • “Anti-Perfectionism and Autonomy in an Imperfect World: Comments on Joseph Raz’sThe Morality of Freedom 30 Years On”. Moral Philosophy and Politics 4 no. 1 (2017), 5-25.
  • “Autonomy and Liberalism: A Troubled Marriage?” in Steven Wall, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 141-62.
  • “Autonomy and Social Disorientation” in Geoffrey Levey, ed. Authenticity, Autonomy and Multiculturalism (London: Routledge, 2015).
  • “Telling Our Stories in the Master’s Tongue: Narrative Selves and Oppressive Circumstance” in Christopher Cowley, ed. Philosophy of Autobiography (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
  • The Politics of Persons: Individual Autonomy and Socio-Historical Selves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  • Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays, co-edited with Joel Anderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, January 2005
  • "Saving Positive Freedom" Political Theory 33 no.1 (February, 2005), 79-88
  • "Narrative Unity as a Condition of Personhood" Metaphilosophy, 35 no. 5 (October 2004), 695-713
  •  The Myth of Property: Toward an Egalitarian Theory of Ownership. Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1994

Current Projects

  • “Social Freedom and Relational Equality”
  • “Markets and Social Freedom”
JC in study