Alia Al-Saji
Professor & James McGill Professor
Alia Al-Saji has a PhD in Philosophy from Emory University (2002), following an MA in Philosophy from K. U. Leuven (1995) and a Bachelor of Arts & Science (McMaster University, 1993). She has taught at McGill since 2002. Her work brings together and critically engages 20th-century phenomenology and French philosophy, on the one hand, and critical race, decolonial, and feminist philosophies, on the other. Running through her research is an abiding concern for questions of time, racialization, and embodiment, the intersection of which she seeks to philosophically elaborate.
Al-Saji’s research has been supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Le fonds de recherche du Québec en société et culture. In 2009, she was awarded a residence fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and in 2012 she was a resident fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Durham University, UK.
Al-Saji was the Co-Director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), the second largest philosophical association in North America, from 2014 to 2017. She is currently a co-editor of the Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy and the Feminist Philosophy section editor of Philosophy Compass.
Al-Saji’s research traces two interrelated trajectories. The first trajectory explores questions of corporeity, memory, and intersubjectivity in terms both of affectivity and perception. She aims to think intersubjective relations in temporal terms, drawing on the philosophies of Henri Bergson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Frantz Fanon.
In the second trajectory, Al-Saji develops a phenomenology of what has been called cultural racism. She offers a critical race feminist analysis of representations of Muslim women in contemporary Western contexts by questioning the ways in which race and gender are at play in attitudes toward the Muslim headscarf or “veil”.
Al-Saji is currently completing a monograph on Hesitation: Critical Phenomenology, Colonial Duration, and the Affective Weight of the Past. In this book, she draws on the works of Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and Fanon and brings them into dialogue with critical race, decolonial, and feminist philosophies. This manuscript not only presents a sustained argument for thinking intersubjectivity temporally, but also brings together her two research trajectories by asking after the ethics and politics of memory and perception. The book presents an analysis of oppressive—specifically racializing and colonial—ways of seeing and the ways they are lived by racialized subjects, in order to generate possibilities for “seeing differently”.
In her methodology, Al-Saji argues for the need for phenomenology to become critical, and she offers a decolonizing critique of operative temporal concepts in the thinkers upon whom she draws. In particular, she examines Bergson's distinction of open/closed and Merleau-Ponty's concepts of dialogue between lived body and world and of institution. In so doing, she retools their philosophies and elaborates her own concept of colonial duration, in order to think the affective weight of the past in racialized experience.
- Awards
- Current Research Grant
- Fellowships
- Major Research Grants - SSHRC
- Major Research Grants - FQRSC
Awards
- H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching, McGill University, 2019: This award is designed to recognize outstanding teaching in the Faculty of Arts and awarded June at Convocation.
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Honorable Mention, 30th Anniversary of the Feminist Caucus Committee Essay Prize, American Society for Aesthetics, 2020.
Current Research Grant
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insights Grant (PI) for the project entitled The Time of Difference: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and a theory of time for ethics. 2016-2021. Ranked first overall in the Philosophy Committee (1/54) and in the first sextile.
Fellowships
- Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Study and St. Cuthbert’s Society, Durham University, UK, Fall term 2012. (Theme of Time)
- Resident Fellow, Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas (IPLAI), McGill University, 2009-2012. (Theme of Memory and Echo)
- Residence Fellowship, The Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France, Winter term 2009.
Major Research Grants – SSHRC
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Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insights Grant (PI) for the project entitled The Time of Difference: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and a theory of time for ethics. 2016-2019. Ranked first overall in the Philosophy Committee (1/54) and in the first sextile.
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Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Conference Grant for the conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), entitled “Philosophical Thresholds: Crossings of life and world / Seuils philosophiques: croisements entre vie et monde,” held in Montreal November 4–6, 2010.
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SSHRC Standard Research Grant (PI) for the project entitled “Vision, race, and ethics: a phenomenological investigation of racializing perception.” McGill University, 2009-2012.
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SSHRC Standard Research Grant for the project entitled “Gender and Philosophical Conceptions of Sexual Difference and of Embodiment.” Co-authored with Marguerite Deslauriers (PI, McGill University) and Cressida Heyes (U of Alberta). McGill University, 2004-2007.
Major Research Grants - FQRSC
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Regular University Member, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC), Regroupements stratégiques grant for the: Réseau québécois en études féministes (RéQEF), 2014-2020 (PI: Francine Descarries, UQAM).
- FQRSC Établissement de nouveaux chercheurs Grant (PI) for the project entitled “Vers une théorie critique de la nature de la sensation: repenser les concepts du temps et du corps dans la philosophie du xxe siècle.” McGill University, 2003-2006.
- Recent Publications
- Critical Phenomenology
- Racism and Colonialism
- Feminist Philosophy
- Time
- Affect
- Bergson
- Fanon
- Husserl
- Merleau-Ponty
- Chronological list
Recent Publications
- "A Debilitating Colonial Duration: Reconfiguring Fanon." Research in Phenomenology, Volume 53, Issue 3 (2023): 279-307. OPEN ACCESS.
- “Too Late: Fanon, the dismembered past, and a phenomenology of racialized time.” In Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Leswin Laubscher, Derek Hook, and Miraj Desai (Routledge, 2021), pp. 177–193.
- “Weariness: Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics.” Philosophy Today, volume 64, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 821-826.
- “Frantz Fanon.” The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, ed. Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer. (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 207–214.
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“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
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“Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
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"Decolonizing Bergson: The temporal schema of the open and the closed." In Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson, ed. Andrea Pitts and Mark Westmoreland (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), pp. 13-35.
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“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
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“Material Life: Bergsonian tendencies in Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy.” In Differences: Rereading Beauvoir and Irigaray, ed. Emily Anne Parker and Anne Van Leeuwen. (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 21-53. Review of this volume on NDPR.
Critical Phenomenology
- "A Debilitating Colonial Duration: Reconfiguring Fanon." Research in Phenomenology, Volume 53, Issue 3 (2023): 279-307. OPEN ACCESS.
- “Too Late: Fanon, the dismembered past, and a phenomenology of racialized time.” In Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Leswin Laubscher, Derek Hook, and Miraj Desai (Routledge, 2021), pp. 177–193.
- “Weariness: Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics.” Philosophy Today volume 64, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 821-826.
- “Frantz Fanon.” The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, ed. Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer. (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 207–214.
-
“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
-
“Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
-
"Decolonizing Bergson: The temporal schema of the open and the closed." In Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson, ed. Andrea Pitts and Mark Westmoreland (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), pp. 13-35.
-
“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
-
“Material Life: Bergsonian tendencies in Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy.” In Differences: Rereading Beauvoir and Irigaray, ed. Emily Anne Parker and Anne Van Leeuwen. (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 21-53. Review of this volume on NDPR.
-
“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
-
“Feminist Phenomenology.” In The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry, Serene J. Khader, Alison Stone (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 143-154.
-
“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
-
“Too Late: Racialized Time and the Closure of the Past.” Insights, Vol. 6, no. 5 (2013): 1-13. Open access. This article deals with Fanon and the temporality of racialized experience.
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“When Thinking Hesitates: Philosophy as prosthesis and transformative vision.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, no. 2 (June 2012): 351-61. Special SJP 50th Anniversary Issue: “Continental Philosophy: What and Where Will It Be?,” ed. Ted Toadvine.
-
“The Racialization of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 875-902.
-
“Bodies and Sensings: On the Uses of Husserlian Phenomenology for Feminist Theory.” Special Issue on Phenomenology and Feminism, ed. Sara Heinämaa and Lanei Rodemeyer, Continental Philosophy Review 43, no. 1 (2010): 13-37.
-
“A Phenomenology of Critical-Ethical Vision: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the question of seeing differently.” Chiasmi International: Publication trilingue autour de la pensée de Merleau-Ponty 11 (Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2009): 375-398.
-
“Voiles racialisés : La femme musulmane dans les imaginaires occidentaux.” Les ateliers de l’éthique: la revue du CRÉUM, Vol. 3, no. 2 (2008): 39-55. Special Issue: Is Feminism Just for Feminists?/Le féminisme n’intéresserait-il que les féministes?, ed. Marguerite Deslauriers and Monique Lanoix. Hear the Radio-CRÉUM emission with an interview of the author.
Racism and Colonialism
- "A Debilitating Colonial Duration: Reconfiguring Fanon." Research in Phenomenology, Volume 53, Issue 3 (2023): 279-307. OPEN ACCESS.
- “Too Late: Fanon, the dismembered past, and a phenomenology of racialized time.” In Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Leswin Laubscher, Derek Hook, and Miraj Desai (Routledge, 2021), pp. 177–193.
- “Weariness: Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics.” Philosophy Today volume 64, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 821-826.
- “Frantz Fanon.” The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, ed. Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer. (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 207–214.
-
“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
-
“Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
-
"Decolonizing Bergson: The temporal schema of the open and the closed." In Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson, ed. Andrea Pitts and Mark Westmoreland (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), pp. 13-35.
-
“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
-
“Material Life: Bergsonian tendencies in Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy.” In Differences: Rereading Beauvoir and Irigaray, ed. Emily Anne Parker and Anne Van Leeuwen. (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 21-53. Review of this volume on NDPR.
-
“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
-
“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
-
“Too Late: Racialized Time and the Closure of the Past.” Insights, Vol. 6, no. 5 (2013): 1-13. Open access. This article deals with Fanon and the temporality of racialized experience.
-
“The Racialization of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 875-902.
-
“White Normality, or Racism against the Abnormal: Comments on Ladelle McWhorter’s Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America.” Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2010).
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“Muslim Women and the Rhetoric of Freedom.” Constructing the Nation: A Race and Nationalism Reader, ed. Mariana Ortega and Linda Martín Alcoff (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), pp. 65-87.
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“Voiles racialisés : La femme musulmane dans les imaginaires occidentaux.” Les ateliers de l’éthique: la revue du CRÉUM, Vol. 3, no. 2 (2008): 39-55. Special Issue: Is Feminism Just for Feminists?/Le féminisme n’intéresserait-il que les féministes?, ed. Marguerite Deslauriers and Monique Lanoix. Hear the Radio-CRÉUM emission with an interview of the author.
Feminist Philosophy
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“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
-
“Material Life: Bergsonian tendencies in Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy.” In Differences: Rereading Beauvoir and Irigaray, ed. Emily Anne Parker and Anne Van Leeuwen. (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 21-53. Review of this volume on NDPR.
-
“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
-
“Feminist Phenomenology.” In The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry, Serene J. Khader, Alison Stone (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 143-154.
-
“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
-
“The Racialization of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 875-902.
-
“Bodies and Sensings: On the Uses of Husserlian Phenomenology for Feminist Theory.” Special Issue on Phenomenology and Feminism, ed. Sara Heinämaa and Lanei Rodemeyer, Continental Philosophy Review 43, no. 1 (2010): 13-37.
-
“White Normality, or Racism against the Abnormal: Comments on Ladelle McWhorter’s Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America.” Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2010).
-
“Muslim Women and the Rhetoric of Freedom.” Constructing the Nation: A Race and Nationalism Reader, ed. Mariana Ortega and Linda Martín Alcoff (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), pp. 65-87.
-
“Voiles racialisés : La femme musulmane dans les imaginaires occidentaux.” Les ateliers de l’éthique: la revue du CRÉUM, Vol. 3, no. 2 (2008): 39-55. Special Issue: Is Feminism Just for Feminists?/Le féminisme n’intéresserait-il que les féministes?, ed. Marguerite Deslauriers and Monique Lanoix. Hear the Radio-CRÉUM emission with an interview of the author.
Time
- "A Debilitating Colonial Duration: Reconfiguring Fanon." Research in Phenomenology, Volume 53, Issue 3 (2023): 279-307. OPEN ACCESS.
- “Too Late: Fanon, the dismembered past, and a phenomenology of racialized time.” In Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Leswin Laubscher, Derek Hook, and Miraj Desai (Routledge, 2021), pp. 177–193.
- “Weariness: Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics.” Philosophy Today volume 64, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 821-826.
-
“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
-
“Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
-
"Decolonizing Bergson: The temporal schema of the open and the closed." In Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson, ed. Andrea Pitts and Mark Westmoreland (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), pp. 13-35.
-
“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
-
“Material Life: Bergsonian tendencies in Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy.” In Differences: Rereading Beauvoir and Irigaray, ed. Emily Anne Parker and Anne Van Leeuwen. (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 21-53. Review of this volume on NDPR.
-
“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
-
“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
-
“Too Late: Racialized Time and the Closure of the Past.” Insights,Vol. 6, no. 5 (2013): 1-13. Open access. This article deals with Fanon and the temporality of racialized experience.
-
“Creating Possibility: The Time of the Quebec Student Movement.” Theory & Event 15, no. 3 (September 2012). Supplement: “Printemps Érable—Quebec’s Maple Spring of 2012”, ed. Darin Barney, Brian Massumi, and Cayley Sorochan.
-
“When Thinking Hesitates: Philosophy as prosthesis and transformative vision.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, no. 2 (June 2012): 351-61. Special SJP 50th Anniversary Issue: “Continental Philosophy: What and Where Will It Be?,” ed. Ted Toadvine.
-
“Life as Vision: Bergson and the future of seeing differently.” Bergson and Phenomenology, ed. Michael Kelly (Bathingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 148-173.
-
“A Phenomenology of Critical-Ethical Vision: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the question of seeing differently.” Chiasmi International: Publication trilingue autour de la pensée de Merleau-Ponty 11 (Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2009): 375-398.
-
“An absence that counts in the world: Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy of time in light of Bernet’s ‘Einleitung’.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 40, no. 2 (2009): 207-227.
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“‘A Past Which Has Never Been Present’: Bergsonian Dimensions in Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of the Prepersonal.” Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 38, no. 1 (2008): 41-71.
-
“The Temporality of Life: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the Immemorial Past.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XLV (Summer 2007): 177-206.
-
“The Memory of Another Past: Bergson, Deleuze and a new theory of time.” Continental Philosophy Review, Vol. 37, no. 2 (2004): 203-239.
Affect
- “Too Late: Fanon, the dismembered past, and a phenomenology of racialized time.” In Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Leswin Laubscher, Derek Hook, and Miraj Desai (Routledge, 2021), pp. 177–193.
- “Weariness: Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics.” Philosophy Today volume 64, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 821-826.
- “Frantz Fanon.” The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, ed. Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer. (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 207–214.
-
“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
-
“Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
-
“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
-
“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
-
“Feminist Phenomenology.” In The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry, Serene J. Khader, Alison Stone (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 143-154.
-
“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
-
“Too Late: Racialized Time and the Closure of the Past.” Insights, Vol. 6, no. 5 (2013): 1-13. Open access. This article deals with Fanon and the temporality of racialized experience.
-
“Bodies and Sensings: On the Uses of Husserlian Phenomenology for Feminist Theory.” Special Issue on Phenomenology and Feminism, ed. Sara Heinämaa and Lanei Rodemeyer, Continental Philosophy Review 43, no. 1 (2010): 13-37.
-
“‘A Past Which Has Never Been Present’: Bergsonian Dimensions in Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of the Prepersonal.” Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 38, no. 1 (2008): 41-71.
-
“Vision, Mirror and Expression: The Genesis of the Ethical Body in Merleau-Ponty’s Later Works.”Interrogating Ethics: Embodying the Good in Merleau-Ponty, ed. James Hatley, Janice McLane and Christian Diehm (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2006), pp. 39-63.
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“The Memory of Another Past: Bergson, Deleuze and a new theory of time.” Continental Philosophy Review, Vol. 37, no. 2 (2004): 203-239.
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“The Site of Affect in Husserl’s Phenomenology: Sensations and the Constitution of the Lived Body,” Philosophy Today 44, SPEP Special Issue (2001): 51-59.
Bergson Studies
- “Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
-
"Decolonizing Bergson: The temporal schema of the open and the closed." In Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson, ed. Andrea Pitts and Mark Westmoreland (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), pp. 13-35.
-
“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
-
“Material Life: Bergsonian tendencies in Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy.” In Differences: Rereading Beauvoir and Irigaray, ed. Emily Anne Parker and Anne Van Leeuwen. (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 21-53. Review of this volume on NDPR.
-
“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
-
“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
-
“Creating Possibility: The Time of the Quebec Student Movement.” Theory & Event 15, no. 3 (September 2012). Supplement: “Printemps Érable—Quebec’s Maple Spring of 2012”, ed. Darin Barney, Brian Massumi, and Cayley Sorochan.
-
“When Thinking Hesitates: Philosophy as prosthesis and transformative vision.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, no. 2 (June 2012): 351-61. Special SJP 50th Anniversary Issue: “Continental Philosophy: What and Where Will It Be?,” ed. Ted Toadvine.
-
“Life as Vision: Bergson and the future of seeing differently.” Bergson and Phenomenology, ed. Michael Kelly (Bathingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 148-173.
-
“A Phenomenology of Critical-Ethical Vision: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the question of seeing differently.” Chiasmi International: Publication trilingue autour de la pensée de Merleau-Ponty 11 (Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2009): 375-398.
-
“‘A Past Which Has Never Been Present’: Bergsonian Dimensions in Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of the Prepersonal.” Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 38, no. 1 (2008): 41-71.
-
“The Temporality of Life: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the Immemorial Past.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XLV (Summer 2007): 177-206.
-
“Bergson’sche Spuren in Sartres Philosophie: Emotion und Negation.” Über Sartre: Perspektiven und Kritiken, hrsg. von Thomas R. Flynn, Peter Kampits und Erik M. Vogt (Wien: Verlag Turia + Kant, 2005), pp. 17-54.
-
“The Memory of Another Past: Bergson, Deleuze and a new theory of time.” Continental Philosophy Review, Vol. 37, no. 2 (2004): 203-239.
Fanon Studies
- "A Debilitating Colonial Duration: Reconfiguring Fanon." Research in Phenomenology, Volume 53, Issue 3 (2023): 279-307. OPEN ACCESS.
- “Too Late: Fanon, the dismembered past, and a phenomenology of racialized time.” In Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Leswin Laubscher, Derek Hook, and Miraj Desai (Routledge, 2021), pp. 177–193.
- “Weariness: Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics.” Philosophy Today volume 64, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 821-826.
- “Frantz Fanon.” The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, ed. Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer. (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 207–214.
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“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
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“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
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“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
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“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
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“Too Late: Racialized Time and the Closure of the Past.” Insights, Vol. 6, no. 5 (2013): 1-13. Open access. This article deals with Fanon and the temporality of racialized experience.
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“The Racialization of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 875-902.
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“Voiles racialisés : La femme musulmane dans les imaginaires occidentaux.” Les ateliers de l’éthique: la revue du CRÉUM, Vol. 3, no. 2 (2008): 39-55. Special Issue: Is Feminism Just for Feminists?/Le féminisme n’intéresserait-il que les féministes?, ed. Marguerite Deslauriers and Monique Lanoix. Hear the Radio-CRÉUM emission with an interview of the author.
Husserl Studies
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“Bodies and Sensings: On the Uses of Husserlian Phenomenology for Feminist Theory.” Special Issue on Phenomenology and Feminism, ed. Sara Heinämaa and Lanei Rodemeyer, Continental Philosophy Review 43, no. 1 (2010): 13-37.
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“An absence that counts in the world: Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy of time in light of Bernet’s ‘Einleitung’.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 40, no. 2 (2009): 207-227.
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“The Site of Affect in Husserl’s Phenomenology: Sensations and the Constitution of the Lived Body,” Philosophy Today 44, SPEP Special Issue (2001): 51-59.
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“Feminist Phenomenology.” In The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry, Serene J. Khader, Alison Stone (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 143-154.
On Merleau-Ponty's rereading of Husserl in light of Bergson:
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“‘A Past Which Has Never Been Present’: Bergsonian Dimensions in Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of the Prepersonal.” Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 38, no. 1 (2008): 41-71.
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“The Temporality of Life: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the Immemorial Past.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XLV (Summer 2007): 177-206.
Merleau-Ponty Studies
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“Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
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“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
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“Feminist Phenomenology.” In The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry, Serene J. Khader, Alison Stone (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 143-154.
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“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
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“When Thinking Hesitates: Philosophy as prosthesis and transformative vision.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, no. 2 (June 2012): 351-61. Special SJP 50th Anniversary Issue: “Continental Philosophy: What and Where Will It Be?,” ed. Ted Toadvine.
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“Life as Vision: Bergson and the future of seeing differently.” Bergson and Phenomenology, ed. Michael Kelly (Bathingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 148-173.
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“Bodies and Sensings: On the Uses of Husserlian Phenomenology for Feminist Theory.” Special Issue on Phenomenology and Feminism, ed. Sara Heinämaa and Lanei Rodemeyer, Continental Philosophy Review 43, no. 1 (2010): 13-37.
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“A Phenomenology of Critical-Ethical Vision: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the question of seeing differently.” Chiasmi International: Publication trilingue autour de la pensée de Merleau-Ponty 11 (Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2009): 375-398.
-
“An absence that counts in the world: Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy of time in light of Bernet’s ‘Einleitung’.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 40, no. 2 (2009): 207-227.
-
“‘A Past Which Has Never Been Present’: Bergsonian Dimensions in Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of the Prepersonal.” Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 38, no. 1 (2008): 41-71.
-
“The Temporality of Life: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the Immemorial Past.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XLV (Summer 2007): 177-206.
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“Vision, Mirror and Expression: The Genesis of the Ethical Body in Merleau-Ponty’s Later Works.” Interrogating Ethics: Embodying the Good in Merleau-Ponty, ed. James Hatley, Janice McLane and Christian Diehm (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2006), pp. 39-63.
Chronological List (Selected Publications)
- "A Debilitating Colonial Duration: Reconfiguring Fanon." Research in Phenomenology, Volume 53, Issue 3 (2023): 279-307. OPEN ACCESS.
- “Too Late: Fanon, the dismembered past, and a phenomenology of racialized time.” In Fanon, Phenomenology and Psychology, ed. Leswin Laubscher, Derek Hook, and Miraj Desai (Routledge, 2021), pp. 177–193.
- “Weariness: Dismembered Time, Colonialism, Pandemics.” Philosophy Today volume 64, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 821-826.
- “Frantz Fanon.” The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, ed. Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer. (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 207–214.
-
“Glued to the Image: A Critical Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 77, no. 4 (2019): 475–488. Special Issue on Race and Aesthetics, ed. A. W. Eaton and Charles Peterson.
-
“Durée.” In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (Northwestern University Press, 2019), pp. 99–106.
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"Decolonizing Bergson: The temporal schema of the open and the closed." In Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson, ed. Andrea Pitts and Mark Westmoreland (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2019), pp. 13-35.
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“Hesitation as Philosophical Method—Travel bans, colonial durations, and the affective weight of the past.” Co-Director's Address, SPEP Special Issue, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 32, no. 3 (2018): 331-359.
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“Material Life: Bergsonian tendencies in Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy.” In Differences: Rereading Beauvoir and Irigaray, ed. Emily Anne Parker and Anne Van Leeuwen. (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 21-53. Review of this volume on NDPR.
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“Hésiter et interrompre la vision racialisante: Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon.” Traduit par Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. Special issue on Pluriversalisme décolonial, ed. Zahra Ali and Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun. TUMULTES (Éditions Kimé), no. 48 (2017): 51-70.
-
“Feminist Phenomenology.” In The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry, Serene J. Khader, Alison Stone (New York and London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 143-154.
-
“A Phenomenology of Hesitation: Interrupting racializing habits of seeing.” Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race, ed. Emily Lee. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014), pp. 133-172. See the INTERVIEW related to this article.
-
“Too Late: Racialized Time and the Closure of the Past.” Insights, Vol. 6, no. 5 (2013): 1-13. Open access. This article deals with Fanon and the temporality of racialized experience.
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“Creating Possibility: The Time of the Quebec Student Movement.” Theory & Event 15, no. 3 (September 2012). Supplement: “Printemps Érable—Quebec’s Maple Spring of 2012”, ed. Darin Barney, Brian Massumi, and Cayley Sorochan.
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“When Thinking Hesitates: Philosophy as prosthesis and transformative vision.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50, no. 2 (June 2012): 351-61. Special SJP 50th Anniversary Issue: “Continental Philosophy: What and Where Will It Be?,” ed. Ted Toadvine.
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“Sartrean Freedom and Bad Faith: Social identities and situations.” Introducing Philosophy for Canadians, ed. Robert C. Solomon & Douglas McDermid (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 352-6.
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“The Racialization of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 875-902.
-
“Life as Vision: Bergson and the future of seeing differently.” Bergson and Phenomenology, ed. Michael Kelly (Bathingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 148-173.
-
“Bodies and Sensings: On the Uses of Husserlian Phenomenology for Feminist Theory.” Special Issue on Phenomenology and Feminism, ed. Sara Heinämaa and Lanei Rodemeyer, Continental Philosophy Review 43, no. 1 (2010): 13-37.
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“White Normality, or Racism against the Abnormal: Comments on Ladelle McWhorter’s Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America.” Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2010).
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“A Phenomenology of Critical-Ethical Vision: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the question of seeing differently.” Chiasmi International: Publication trilingue autour de la pensée de Merleau-Ponty 11 (Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2009): 375-398.
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“Muslim Women and the Rhetoric of Freedom.” Constructing the Nation: A Race and Nationalism Reader, ed. Mariana Ortega and Linda Martín Alcoff (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), pp. 65-87.
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“An absence that counts in the world: Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy of time in light of Bernet’s ‘Einleitung’.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 40, no. 2 (2009): 207-227.
-
“Voiles racialisés : La femme musulmane dans les imaginaires occidentaux.” Les ateliers de l’éthique: la revue du CRÉUM, Vol. 3, no. 2 (2008): 39-55. Special Issue: Is Feminism Just for Feminists?/Le féminisme n’intéresserait-il que les féministes?, ed. Marguerite Deslauriers and Monique Lanoix. Hear the Radio-CRÉUM emission with an interview of the author.
-
“‘A Past Which Has Never Been Present’: Bergsonian Dimensions in Merleau-Ponty’s Theory of the Prepersonal.” Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 38, no. 1 (2008): 41-71.
-
“The Temporality of Life: Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and the Immemorial Past.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XLV (Summer 2007): 177-206.
-
“Vision, Mirror and Expression: The Genesis of the Ethical Body in Merleau-Ponty’s Later Works.” Interrogating Ethics: Embodying the Good in Merleau-Ponty, ed. James Hatley, Janice McLane and Christian Diehm (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2006), pp. 39-63.
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“Bergson’sche Spuren in Sartres Philosophie: Emotion und Negation.” Über Sartre: Perspektiven und Kritiken, hrsg. von Thomas R. Flynn, Peter Kampits und Erik M. Vogt (Wien: Verlag Turia + Kant, 2005), pp. 17-54.
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“The Memory of Another Past: Bergson, Deleuze and a new theory of time.” Continental Philosophy Review, Vol. 37, no. 2 (2004): 203-239.
Public Philosophy
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Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Debate, “Can old philosophy help build our new world?” Televised Debate. 19 November, 2020, with MM McCabe, Tom Kasulis, and David Runciman, moderated by Ritula Shah (BBC).
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"Why we should stop fixating on what Muslim women wear." New Statesman, February 4, 2019.
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Listen to my podcast interview: Entrevue avec Alia Al-Saji, professeure de philosophie à l'Université McGill. Par Carine Monat. 20%. Québec Science. Sortie le 11 mars, 2019.
Interviews
- Interview with CKUT at McGill University on my research and Islamophobia, aired February 4th and February 11th, 2020.
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Listen to my podcast interview: Entrevue avec Alia Al-Saji, professeure de philosophie à l'Université McGill. Par Carine Monat. 20%. Québec Science. Sortie le 11 mars, 2019.
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"Une approche féministe de la philosophie." Interview in French, July 11, 2017.
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“Feminist Phenomenology, Race, and Perception: An interview with Alia Al-Saji.” Interview with Emma Ryman. Published on the Rotman Institute of Philosophy Engaging Science Blog, June 10, 2013.
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“Time in conversation with Prof. Alia Al-Saji." Interview at the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, October 2012.
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Interview for Radio-CRÉUM’s Les voix de l’éthique, aired as part of the episode “Le féminisme n’intéresserait-il que les féministes?” on December 6, 2008 in commemoration of the 1989 massacre at the École Polytechnique.
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Interview for the documentary on Frantz Fanon entitled “The Wretched of the Earth” by David Austin, for CBC Radio One’s Ideas program (aired in Part One of the documentary on 25 October 2006).
Positions in Professional Societies
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Executive Co-Director, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), elected 2014-2017.
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Founding Member and Co-Organizer, the Bergson Circle, 2016–present.
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Member-at-large on the Executive Committee of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), elected 2009-2012.
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Nominating Committee, Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA), elected 2015-2017.
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Program Committee, Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA), 2009-2011.
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Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), 2007-2009.
Editor
- Co-Editor, Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy, 2010–present. With Amy Allen, Kathryn Sophia Belle, and José Medina.
- Editor of the Feminist Philosophy section of the journal Philosophy Compass, 2012–present.
Videos of Talks
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Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual Debate, “Can old philosophy help build our new world?” Televised Debate. 19 November, 2020, with MM McCabe, Tom Kasulis, and David Runciman, moderated by Ritula Shah (BBC).
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Talk at the Racial Inequality Conference at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York, March 2018. [Go to time index 31:30]
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Talk on “Sticky and Hesitating Images” at the Symposium on Feminist Pedagogies: Listening, Hesitation, and Lived Possibilities at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, in April 2017. [Go to time index 42:00]