Samantha Brennan

Professor and Dean | College of Arts, University of Guelph
As an internationally recognized feminist philosopher and ethicist, Professor Samantha Brennan (PhD Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1993) has produced a body of scholarship that spans a wide range of areas in contemporary theoretical and applied ethics, including rights; moral issues within families, such as children's rights, parental obligations, and family justice; feminist ethics; and the moral and political value of equality. Her research interests also include political philosophy, gender identity and sexuality, the moral significance of human mortality, fashion, and sports ethics.

Brennan applies her recent research on micro-inequities, small wrongs which are morally significant when they add up to large harms, to understand barriers to inclusion and diversity in workplace and university settings, connecting her research to her commitment to improving the situation of women and members of other marginalized groups in the field in Philosophy.

A leader in feminist ethics, Brennan was a founding member of the Women in Philosophy task force, a board member of the International Association of Women in Philosophy (IAPh), and a member of the American Philosophical Association Climate Committee’s Site Visit Program. She is a co-founder and co-editor of Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, a peer reviewed, online, open access journal. She also started the very successful Southwestern Ontario Feminist Philosophers Workshop.

Currently Past-President of the Canadian Philosophical Association, Brennan has also been an active member of the American Philosophical Association serving on the Public Philosophy Committee and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Trans Philosophers Committee.

Brennan has an outstanding international research profile and reputation, including visiting fellowships at The Australian National University, the University of Otago in New Zealand, and the University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethics. She is frequently invited to give keynote addresses at international conferences.

Brennan also has a long-standing commitment to public engagement, maintaining an extremely active presence on social media across a wide range of platforms. Brennan co-founded the Fit is a Feminist Issue blog, which connects thousands of readers with feminist ideas about fitness. She is frequently interviewed in various media and has participated in several episodes of the respected CBC radio series, Ideas, on issues in moral philosophy such as lying and paternalism.

Brennan is Dean of the College of Arts and a member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Guelph.

For more information, see https://www.uoguelph.ca/arts/philosophy/people/samantha-brennan or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Brennan