November/December 2012: Chris Cuomo

Chris J. CuomoUniversity of GeorgiaChris J. Cuomo is Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Georgia, where she also serves as an affiliate faculty member of the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, the Institute for Native American Studies, the Institute for African-American Studies, and the Initiative on Climate and Society. Originally from New York but raised in suburban New Jersey, Cuomo received her B.A. in Philosophy and Religion from Colgate University and her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She served as Obed J. Wilson Professor of Ethics at the University of Cincinnati before moving south in 2006. Chris has held visiting fellowships at Cornell University, Amherst College and Murdoch University, and has been a recipient of research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Ms. Foundation, the National Council for Research on Women, and Ideas for Creative Exploration.

Cuomo's work is multifaceted. Her primary interests are the articulation of feminist philosophy on its own terms, and interdisciplinary research and teaching that desegregate theory and practice. She has been a leading advocate for feminist approaches to environmental philosophy, science and activism, and has developed concepts, such as ecological feminism, flourishing and dynamic charm, to ground critical multicultural movements for green justice (Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing, Routledge, 1998). Her work in philosophy of race has focused on the cunning fictions of whiteness and their maintenance in mundane social norms (Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Reflections, co-edited with Kim Q. Hall, Rowman and Littlefield, 1999). Her 2007 essay "Dignity and the Right to be Lesbian or Gay" considers sexual autonomy a fundamental aspect of human dignity, and argues against religious homophobia (Philosophical Studies 132(1)).

Cuomo's book The Philosopher Queen: Feminist Essays on War, Love, and Knowledge (Routledge 2003), a Lambda Award and an APA book award nominee, includes writings on topics ranging from post-9/11 anti-war politics, to conflicts in feminist controversies about sex, to the possibility of earth-friendly science. Her co-edited Feminist Philosophy Reader (with Alison Bailey) is a popular textbook in philosophy and women's and gender studies. She has edited a special issue of Ethics and the Environment, on Eco-Art, and a forthcoming special issue of Hypatia, on Climate Change (with Nancy Tuana). Her 1996 essay “Why War is Not Just (an Event): Reflections on the Significance of Everyday Violence" (Hypatia 11(4)) has an enthusiastic following in the debate community and is an oft-cited "kritik" argument.

Currently Chris is involved in ongoing collaborative research on local and indigenous knowledge about landscape changes on the North Slope of Alaska (see "Environmental Change, Indigenous Knowledge, and Subsistence on Alaska’s North Slope"), and writing on feminism and climate justice (e.g., “Climate Change, Responsibility and Vulnerability”). She is also working on a community environmental art project in downtown Athens, Georgia (ecoartlab.wordpress.com).