Director, Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Professor, Department of Philosophy
Leacock 925
(514) 393-1331
Natalie Stoljar received a BA (Hons) LLB (Hons) from the University of Sydney and a PhD from Princeton University. She came to McGill in 2006 after holding positions at the Australian National University, Monash University and the University of Melbourne. Her research is in three areas: feminist philosophy, social and political philosophy, and the philosophy of law. In social and political philosophy, her work focuses on relational conceptions of autonomy. She is co-editor (with Catriona Mackenzie) of the 2000 collection Relational Autonomy. Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency and the Social Self (OUP). In feminist philosophy, she has written on feminist metaphysics, especially gender essentialism, realism and nominalism. In the philosophy of law, she has published on legal interpretation, constitutional interpretation and judicial review, and the methodology of law. She is currently working on procedural justice and the ethics of policy and legal processes.
Prof. Stoljar is the Subject Editor for Gender and Feminism for The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (General Editor, Tim Crane, University of Cambridge). Her research is funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant, 'Silencing, Objectification and Negative Social Scripts. Do They Undermine Autonomy?' (2016-2020), and a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (with Kristin Voigt), 'Relational Equality and Relational Autonomy' (2016-2019).
Prof. Stoljar regularly teaches the Department’s philosophy of law courses (PHIL 348 and PHIL 648). She was Chair of the Department from 2008-2012, Interim Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy in 2018-2019, and will act as Interim Director of the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies in 2020-21.