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Watch a video of Professor Oliver's lecture, "Women: The Secret Weapon of Modern Warfare?"

Kelly Oliver

W. Alton Jones Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Women's Studies

Contact Information

Email: kelly.oliver@vanderbilt.edu
Office: 103 Furman Hall
Phone: (615) 343-0334
Fax: (615) 343-7259

Degrees

BA, Philosophy, and Communications, Gonzaga University, 1979
PhD, Philosophy, Northwestern University, 1987

Research Area

Period and Figures: 19th and 20th Century Continental Philosophy, especially Nietzsche, and Contemporary French Philosophy, particularly Kristeva. Topics: Subjectivity, Language, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Feminism, Theories of Oppression, Film Theory.

Dr. Oliver's trajectory of research (pdf)

Current Research

My new book, entitled Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human, has just been published. There I analyze metaphors of animals and animality in the history of philosophy and contemporary Continental Philosophy.

Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human


Currently, I am working on a project entitled "Knock Me Up, Knock Me Down: Images of Pregnancy in Hollywood and Popular Culture."

Publications

Articles

Authored Books
  • Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human, Columbia University Press, 2009. (click here for an interview that features Animal Lessons)
  • Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex and the Media, Columbia University Press, 2007. (click here for an excerpt)
  • The Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Oppression, University of Minnesota Press, Fall 2004.
  • Noir Anxiety: Race, Sex and Maternity in Film Noir, University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
  • Witnessing: Beyond Recognition, University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
  • Subjectivity Without Subjects, Rowman & Littlefield Press, 1998.
  • Family Values: Subject Between Nature and Culture, Routledge Press, 1997.
  • Womanizing Nietzsche: Philosophy's Relation to the "Feminine", Routledge Press, 1995.
  • Reading Kristeva. Indiana University Press, 1993.


Edited Books
  • Recent French Feminism, Oxford University Press, Fall 2004.
  • The Portable Kristeva, Columbia University Press, 2002.
  • Between the Psyche and the Social, Rowman & Littlefield Press, 2002.
  • The French Feminism Reader, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
  • Enigmas: The Writing of Sarah Kofman, Cornell University Press, 1999.
  • Feminist Interpretations of Nietzsche, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

Book Covers

Colonization of Psychic Space Book Cover Family Values Book Cover Witnessing Book Cover
oliver subjectivity oliver reading oliver woman

oliver pk oliver epd jk oliver jk sk