Portrait of James Garrison

James Garrison

Assistant Professor

Pronouns
He/Him/His
College
Fine Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
Department
Philosophy
Phone
978-934-2528
Office
Dugan 200D
Email
james_garrison@uml.edu
Links

Expertise

Intercultural Philosophy, Asian Philosophy, Philosophy of Race and Gender, Continental Philosophy

Research Interests

I work primarily in intercultural philosophy, focusing largely on social and political issues and sources from East Asia and from the African diaspora. I am also interested in art, aesthetics, bodily self-cultivation, German philosophy, American transcendentalism, and American pragmatism.

Education

  • Dr.Phil., Philosophy (2015) University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria (Specialization: Intercultural Philosophy)
  • M.A., Philosophy (2007) University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai’i (distinction, admitted to doctoral program)
  • B.A., Philosophy (2004) Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington (honors)

Biosketch

James Garrison, Dr.Phil. (University of Vienna, 2015) is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell whose work focuses on ethics, aesthetics, intercultural philosophy, and social/political philosophy and who is the sole principal investigator of the upcoming work The Subject Project: Human Visibility, Vulnerability, and Diversity in the Data Age, which is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is also the author of the forthcoming book Black Bodies That Matter: Mourning, Rage, and Beauty (Bloomsbury). Additionally, he is a co-editor of and contributing author to the collected volume Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective: Power Relations in a Global World (Routledge, 2021) and also the author of his own book titled Reconsidering the Life of Power: Ritual, Body, and Art in Critical Theory and Chinese Philosophy (State University of New York Press, 2021) as well as the former Managing Editor of University of Hawai’i Press’ journal China Review International. He is a 2024 Philosophy in Media Fellow kindly supported by the Marc Sanders Foundation.

Selected Publications

  • Black Bodies That Matter: Mourning, Rage, and Beauty (Bloomsbury, 2024). (forthcoming)
  • Political Philosophy from an Intercultural Perspective: Power Relations in a Global World (co-editor/contributing author) (Routledge, 2021).
  • Reconsidering the Life of Power: Ritual, Body, and Art in Critical Theory and Chinese Philosophy (State University of New York Press, 2021).
  • Orte des Denkens–Places of Thinking (co-editor/contributing author)(Verlag Karl Alber, 2016).

Publications in Refereed Journals & Collections

  • 2023 “‘The Order’ of the Day: Lessons, Philosophical and Otherwise, from Childhood at the Heart of American Christian Nationalism” in In Sheep’s Clothing: The Idolatry of White Christian Nationalism. George Yancy, editor (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books).
  • 2023 “Reconsidering the Life of Power: Buddhist Perspectives” in Buddhism and the Body. Kenneth Holloway, editor (Leiden: Brill). 245–264.
  • 2018 “What Should the World Look Like? – Li? Ze´ho`u, Confucius, Kant, and the World Observer” in Li Zehou and Confucian Philosophy. Roger T. Ames & Jia Jinhua, editors (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press). 118–134.
  • 2015 “Reconsidering Richard Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: The Confucian Debate between Mèng Zi and Xún Zi” in Contemporary Pragmatism, Vol. 12 No. 1. Pp. 135–155.

Selected Presentations

  • “The Subject Project: Human Visibility, Vulnerability, and Diversity in Data Age Medical Research,” 3rd International Conference on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, University of the Azores, 2024.
  • “The Platform Sutra and Psychoanalysis: Mourning, Melancholia, and Sudden Enlightenment in Response to Trauma,” 12th East-West Philosophers’ Conference, University of Hawai’i at Manoa East-West Center, 2024.
  • “A Gu That’s Not a Gu: The End of Art in China? (Part II),” 22nd International Congress of Aesthetics, Federal University of Minas Gerais, 2023.
  • “Reconsidering the Life of Power, Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy,” University of Melbourne, 2022.
  • “Author Meets Critics – Reconsidering the Life of Power,” Invited Roundtable, American Philosophical Association: Western Division, 2022.

Selected Contracts, Fellowships, Grants and Sponsored Research

  • Dangers and Opportunities of Technology Grant for “The Subject Project: Human Visibility, Vulnerability, and Diversity in the Data Age” (DOI-299582), National Endowment for the Humanities
  • Philosophy in Media Fellowship, Marc Sanders Foundation

Research Currently in Progress

The Subject Project: Human Visibility, Vulnerability, and Diversity in the Data Age