Biography
Currently, Claudia Leeb is assistant professor of political philosophy in the Department of Public Affairs at Roanoke College. She is also a research affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in Political Theory from The New School for Social Research in New York City. She also holds a doctorate in Psychology and Philosophy of Science from the University of Vienna, Austria. Her teaching and research interests lie in the following areas: Political and Social Philosophy, 19th- and 20th-century European Political Thought, Feminist Political Theory, Democratic Theory, Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis, and The History of Political Thought.
Claudia is widely published in her areas of research and teaching interests. In the single-authored book, Working-Class Women in Elite Academia: A Philosophical Inquiry (2004), she discusses class, gender and racial injustices in academia and suggest strategies for generating an inclusive academic community. In another single-authored book Die Zerstӧrung des Mythos von der Friedfertigen Frau [The Destruction of the Myth of the Peaceful Woman] (1998), she challenges the male-aggressive/female-non aggressive binary and introduces the constructive concept of direct female aggression. This academic year she expects to publish the completed book manuscript, The Possibilities of the Limit: Rethinking Democratic and Feminist Theory, in which she provides a philosophical foundation for a democratic and feminist theory that introduces the moment of “the limit,” or the gap in the unity of a political community, as a central component for an inclusive and transformative politics. She is also the co-editor of the anthology Feminists Contest Politics and Philosophy (2005), an essay collection of the best papers of the Women in Political Studies conference, which she organized.
Claudia has also published in central peer-reviewed journals in her field. Her article “Toward a Theoretical Outline of the Subject: The Centrality of Adorno and Lacan for Feminist Political Theorizing” was featured as the lead article in the June 2008 issue of the journal Political Theory (the premier journal in the field). In this article she shows how Continental thought can contribute to a transformative and inclusive politics. Her other recent articles in Social Philosophy Today (2010), The Good Society (August 2009), Theory & Event (February 2008) and Philosophy & Social Criticism (November 2007) explain the persistence of injustices in modern capitalist societies and suggest theoretical concepts key for socio-political transformation. Claudia’s research has been supported by substantial grants, including the APART (Austrian Program of Advanced Research and Technology) grant from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the New School for Social Research Ph.D. fellowship, and the J. William Fulbright fellowship.
She has been able to teach several courses in a variety of academic settings with diverse student bodies on both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including Modern and Contemporary Political Theory, Power and Political Resistance, and Theories of Justice. She teaches in an engaging manner that encourages the application of philosophical concepts to concrete social and political phenomena. At the University of Chicago, she introduced a new graduate course to the curriculum that considered three alternative models of political theorizing—critical theory, post-structuralism, and feminist political theory—as a means to address injustices in contemporary societies. At Dartmouth College, she taught the History of Political Thought and developed an advanced course on Contemporary Continental Political Thought. At Roanoke College, she developed the following new courses: The Frankfurt School in New York City, Marx and Ethics, The Philosophy of Middle-Eastern Politics, and Feminist Political Theory. She has also taught at the University of Vienna, Princeton University, the New School, and the Cooper Union for the Arts and Sciences.
Claudia has presented her work in peer-reviewed conferences and invited lectures, both in North America and internationally. Her service includes organizing panels and discussing papers at national and regional American Political Science Association and American Philosophical Association conferences, organizing the Women in Philosophy Interdisciplinary conferences, and on-going academic forums. This year she organized the successful Gender, Politics and Society Conference at Roanoke College.
Claudia has an active research agenda. At Roanoke College she continues to develop a new research project on the relationship between guilt and democracy. Her future research draws on European thought to address current issues, such as the negative effects of liberal capitalism. She also aims to explain the relationship between theory and practice, which remains a central yet under-studied relation in contemporary political and feminist theory.