Kelly Oliver papers (MS.2024.012)

Biographical/Historical Note

Kelly Oliver grew up in the Northwest, Montana, Idaho, and Washington states. She earned her B.A. from Gonzaga University in 1979 and her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1987. She is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University where her scholarly work focused on feminist theory, political philosophy, ethics, campus rape, reproductive technologies, women and the media, film noir, and animals. Oliver notes that her scholarly and personal interest in animals and nature derives from her upbringing in the rural Northwest.

Oliver is the author of fifteen scholarly books, including, Response Ethics (Roman & Littlefield 2018), Carceral Humanitarianism: The Logic of Refugee Detention (University of Minnesota 2017); Hunting Girls: Sexual Violence from The Hunger Games to Campus Rape (Columbia 2016); Earth and World: Philosophy After the Apollo Missions (Columbia 2015); Technologies of Life and Death: From Cloning to Capital Punishment (Fordham 2013); Knock me up, Knock me down: Images of Pregnancy in Hollywood Film (Columbia 2012); Animal Lessons: How They Teach us to be Human (Columbia 2009); Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex and the Media (2007); The Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Theory of Oppression (Minnesota 2004); Noir Anxiety: Race, Sex, and Maternity in Film Noir (Minnesota 2002); and perhaps her best known work, Witnessing: Beyond Recognition (Minnesota 2001). Her work has been translated into eight languages. Most recently, she has published three novels in The Jessica James, Cowgirl Philosopher, Mystery Series.

She has published in The New York Times, and has been interviewed on ABC television news, various radio programs, and Canadian Broadcasting Network.

Derived from https://kellyoliverbooks.com/kelly/ and https://as.vanderbilt.edu/philosophy/bio/kelly-oliver in April 2024.