“Learning to philosophize is finding one’s voice in a conversation that is already ongoing. In order to get started, one has first to find one’s bearings, immersing oneself in the work of philosophical thinkers, including historical figures, and also in the work of contributors to the other humanities, the social sciences, and the arts. This means that, to some extent, at the very beginning, one cannot help but rely on the authority of those—texts or, more likely, individuals—who play the role in one’s life as teachers. …
I would certainly say that, as philosophers, we cannot help being heirs to particular intellectual traditions, and I would add that we don’t properly receive this bequest unless, in accepting it, we undertake a standing responsibility to critically survey it. Part of what it is to come into one’s own philosophically is to insist on one’s readiness to assume this critical stance.”
– Excerpt from interview in Oxford Public Philosophy, 2020.
Selected existing courses
- Turn Toward Virtue: Anscombe, Foot and Murdoch, spring 2025, one of my regular offerings in moral philosophy
- Climate, Migration, Critique, a new graduate seminar, with Achilles Kallergis (Zolberg), fall 2024
- Animal Ethics: Animal Crisis (at NSSR), Fall 2022 (NSSR), Animal Ethics (at NYU)—with Dale Jamieson (NYU), Spring 2020, two recent examples of my course offerings in animal ethics
- Environmental Ethics: The Death of Nature: Critical Environmental Thought in the Anthropocene, Fall 2024—versions of this course have been offered at undergraduate and graduate levels at the New School with different texts and emphases annually since 2019, sometimes jointly with Jay Bernstein. The course is being offered Fall 2024
- History of Analytic: History of Analytic Philosophy, Spring 2023, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, fall 2019, Speech Acts, 2014, some of my course offerings on Wittgenstein, Austin, and other figures in the history of analytic philosophy
- Critical Theory: Introduction to Critical Theory [at Oxford], 2019, The Case for Critique—with Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt), 2016
- Philosophy and Literature: Philosophy and Literature [at Oxford]—with Stephen Mulhall (Oxford), 2018, Interpretation: Legal, Literary and Philosophical Aspects—with Martin Stone (Cardozo), 2016, Fate of the Novel—with Martin Stone (Cardozo), 2011 and solo, 2015, these courses are successors to courses on philosophy of literature I have taught since 2000.
- Hannah Arendt: Philosophy and Politics—with Dick Bernstein (NSSR), Spring 2021
- Gender and Its Discontents, this is the core course I created for the New School’s Graduate Program on Gender and Sexuality Studies (now the Gender Institute), which I co-founded in 2014. I co-taught the course with Laura Auricchio (Parsons and NSPE) in 2015 and co-taught it with Terri Gordon (NSPE) in 2016
Current and upcoming courses
2025-2026: I am on leave (as a Researcher-in-Residence at Maison Suger, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris, a Visiting Researcher with the Institut des Sciences Juridique et Philosophique de la Sorbonne, and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Critical Democracy Studies, American University of Paris). During 2026-2027, my offerings will include a graduate seminar on Wittgenstein
Get in Touch
crarya@newschool.edu
alice.crary@regents.ox.ac.uk
Alice Crary 