NCID-1813
Jameliah Shorter-Bourhanou
Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow
College of the Holy Cross
Education/Degree:
1 Philosophy (Pennsylvania State University)
About
Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, the home of the Master's Tournament. For undergraduate studies, Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou attended Paine College, a small, historically African American liberal arts college in her hometown on a full academic scholarship. Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou was inspired to pursue a major in philosophy and religion while at Paine. In 2009, Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou graduated salutatorian of her class. That fall, Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou started the MA/PhD program in philosophy at Penn State University. In 2014, Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou accepted a tenure-track position in the Department of Philosophy and Liberal Studies at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia while she was ABD. Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou defended her dissertation in 2015. Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou's current research is about cosmopolitanism and the racial views of the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. She is interested in the extent to which Kant is universally egalitarian despite holding disparaging views about people of color. Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou am excited about teaching at the Holy Cross because she loves working with highly motivated and brilliant undergraduate students. Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou's courses will contribute to the philosophy department and Africana Studies.
Current Work
Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou research is motivated by interests in Kant and critical philosophy of race. More specifically, her dissertation is a contribution to current interests in the idea of cosmopolitanism. Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou focuses on the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant and his views on African slavery as they can be reconstructed from comments found in different areas of his work. These areas include natural history, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. In a broad context, Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou's dissertation addresses concerns about where to place the concept of race in Kant's moral cosmopolitanism. Human inequality can be shown to play an indispensable role for Kant's philosophy of history and his moral cosmopolitanism. Furthermore, Dr. Shorter-Bourhanou shows that his concept of race informs his understanding of the function and origin of inequality even in his later ‘egalitarian’ phase of the 1790s. She is currently extending this research in a book project entitled, Racism and Kantian Cosmopolitanism.
Research Area Keyword(s)
Black feminism, Immanuel Kant, philosophy, race