Naomi Zack
Education
I received my BA from New York University with a double major in Philosophy and Psychology. My PhD in Philosophy was from Columbia University. I wrote my dissertation on the epistemology of C. I. Lewis (the still-neglected conceptual pragmatist). (My interests have broadened considerably since then.)
Research
I received my PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University and have been Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon since 2001. My newest book is The Theory of Applicative Justice: An Empirical Pragmatic Approach to Correcting Racial Injustice (2016). Related recent books are: White Privilege and Black Rights: The Injustice of US Police Racial Profiling and Homicide (2015) and The Ethics and Mores of Race: Equality after the History of Philosophy (2011, 2015). Additional monographs include: Ethics for Disaster (2009, 2010), Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women’s Commonality (2005), the short textbook, Thinking About Race, 1998, 2006); Bachelors of Science: 17th Century Identity Then and Now (1996); Philosophy of Science and Race (2002); Race and Mixed Race (1993). Published in January 2017 is my edited 51-contributor Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-philosoph... Out in June 2018 is my textbook, Philosophy of Race, An Introduction. Forthcoming in August and November 2018 is a monograph for understanding and coping with our polical times, Reviving the Social Compact: Inclusive Citizenship in an Age of Extreme Politics
My early work on race focused on the biological emptiness of human racial categories and the conundrum of mixed-race identities (especially black and white mixed race). But since 2010, my work on race has been more broadly concerned with concrete injustice and abstract theories of injustice that extend beyond race. Recent interviews about my critique of white privilege discourse include: PhilosophyTalk.org, “White Privilege and Racial Justice,” Feb. 14, 2016, http://philosophytalk.org/shows/white-privilege-and-racial-injustice; Interview about critique of white privilege discourse on PRI, “To the Best of Our Knowledge,” Oct. 17, 2015. https://www.ttbook.org/interview/lets-stop-talking-about-privilege; “What ‘White Privilege’ Really Means,” Interview by George Yancy in New York Times, Opinionator, Stone.http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/the-stone/ November 5, 2014.
My treatment of disaster emphasizes the ethical dimensions of obligatory preparation and my emerging scholarly work on home and homelessness proceeds from a class-based, contemporary cosmopolitan perspective. But my work on feminist issues, particularly women of color feminism(s), is focused on theory. I organized the project on home and homelessness for the University of Oregon Philosophy Department, and maintain the multimedia website: http://homelessness.philosophy.uoregon.edu/.
Publications
Teaching
I have taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses at the University at Albany, SUNY and the University of Oregon, including ethics, existentialism, newly designed courses on disaster, homelessness, and cultural diversity, as well as courses on philosophy of race, author's courses on early modern philosophers, and graduate seminars on the history of political and moral philosophy, and twentieth century analytic philosophy.