Cynthia Willett

Cynthia Willett is an American philosopher and Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University, with affiliations in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Psychoanalytic Studies Program. She earned her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1988. Willett's scholarly work spans ethics, social and political philosophy, critical theory, and American social thought. She has also explored the philosophy of music, literature, tragedy, comedy, and interspecies ethics. Her influential books include "Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities" (1995), "The Soul of Justice: Social Bonds and Racial Hubris" (2001), "Irony in the Age of Empire" (2009), and "Interspecies Ethics" (2014). Her most recent publication is "Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive Comics Speak Truth" (2019), co-authored with Julie Willett. Willett has held significant academic positions, including serving on the American Philosophical Association's Executive Board and as co-director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.