Ellie Anderson

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

ellie.anderson@pomona.edu

Office:

Pearsons Hall

201B

With Pomona Since: 2020

Expertise
Expertise

Ellie Anderson specializes in continental European philosophy, with emphasis on 20th-century French philosophy and feminist theory. Her research focuses on relational theories of selfhood, the philosophy of love, and sexual ethics. Her article “Hermeneutic Labor: The Gendered Burden of Interpretation in Intimate Relationships Between Women and Men” was one of Hypatia's top-read articles in 2023 and 2024, and her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Slate and more. She is currently completing a monograph on the phenomenology of selfhood and a series of articles on sexual ethics and love, as well as preparing a book critically analyzing self-care and self-objectification in contemporary life.
Anderson is co-host of Overthink podcast and YouTube channel, a top .5% podcast worldwide with over 5 million views on YouTube that relates the history of philosophy to contemporary culture. Her work with Overthink is regularly assigned in college classrooms nationwide. She is also the host of the Crash Course series on political theory.
A vocal advocate for philosophical pluralism, including continental philosophy and global traditions, Anderson received her Ph.D. from Emory University in 2016. She serves on the editorial board of Continental Philosophy Review and the outreach committee for the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP). Anderson’s work in public philosophy has been supported by the Marc Sanders Foundation’s Philosophy in the Media Fellowship, the Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good's Signature Course Fellowship, and Wig and Hahn grants at �鶹��ý. Prior to joining Pomona in 2020, she taught at Pitzer College, Scripps College and Muhlenberg College. She received the Wig Distinguished Professor Award at Pomona in 2024.
You can find Overthink on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok at @overthink_pod and on the website overthinkpodcast.com. Anderson is on Instagram and Twitter at @ellieanderphd, and you can find more about her work at ellieandersonphd.com.

Research Interests

Feminist Theory
Selfhood and Personal Identity
Phenomenology
Philosophy of Love
Sexual Ethics
Areas of Expertise

Phenomenology
Existentialism
Poststructuralism
Feminist Theory
Philosophy of Race
Work

Work

“Phenomenology and Existentialism,” in Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, ed. Ted Toadvine and Nicolas de Warren. New York: Springer (forthcoming).
“Sexuality as a Theme in Phenomenology,” in Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, ed. Ted Toadvine and Nicolas de Warren. New York: Springer (forthcoming).
“Beauvoir on Non-Monogamy in Loving Relationships,” in the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Existentialism, ed. Kevin Aho. New York: Routledge, 2024.
“Hermeneutic Labor: The Gendered Burden of Interpretation in Intimate Relationships Between Women and Men.” Hypatia 38: 177-197, 2023.
podcast
“The Ethical Significance of Being an Erotic Object,” co-written with Caleb Ward. The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics, ed. David Boonin (2022).
“Erotic Love and Marriage in Beauvoir’s The Second Sex,”&�Բ��;Le Deuxième Sexe Seventy Years On, ed. Pauline Henry-Tierney and Julia Bullock (2023).
“Questions to Jacques Derrida” and “Ocelle comme pas un,” by Jacques Derrida, co-translated with Philippe Lynes, in Thinking What Comes, ed. Geoffrey Bennington and Kas Saghafi (forthcoming).
"Phenomenology and the Ethics of Love." Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, 2021.
"Sartre's Affective Turn: Shame as Recognition in 'The Look." Philosophy Today, 65:3, Summer 2021.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, co-written with Cynthia Willett and Diana Tietjen Meyers. First published July 2015; updated February 2020.
Unmute podcast, episode 51, interviewed by host Myisha Cherry:
American Philosophical Association (APA) Women in Philosophy blog, April 23.
"From Existential Alterity to Ethical Reciprocity: Beauvoir's Alternative to Levinas." Continental Philosophy Review, 52:2, 2019, 171-189.
“Abraham’s Melancholy,” by Jacques Derrida, co-translated with Philippe Lynes, Oxford Literary Review, 39:2, 153-188.
"Autoeroticism: Rethinking Self-Love with Derrida and Irigaray.” PhaenEx: Journal of Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, 12:1, Spring/Summer 2017, 53-70.
“The Other (Woman): Limits of Knowledge in Beauvoir’s Ethics of Reciprocity,”&�Բ��;The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 28:3, 380-388, 2014.
Education

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, Emory University
Master of Arts, Philosophy, Emory University
Bachelor of Arts, optima, Philosophy, Trinity College
Awards & Honors
Awards & Honors
Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good Signature Course Fellow, 2024-25
Wig Distinguished Professor Award, �鶹��ý, 2024
Wig Teaching Innovation Grant, �鶹��ý, 2021, 2022, 2023
Hahn Teaching with Technology Grant, �鶹��ý, 2021
Marc Sanders Foundation Philosophy in the Media Fellow in Podcasting, 2021-22
Piedmont TATTO Fellowship in Sustainability, Teaching, and Curriculum, Emory University, 2015
Arts & Sciences Fellowship, Laney Graduate School, Emory University, 2011-2016
Phi Beta Kappa, 2010
President's Fellow of Philosophy, Trinity College, 2010

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Ellie Anderson

Expertise

Research Interests

Areas of Expertise

Work

Education

Awards & Honors

Mailing Address

Get in touch

Connect

Give back to Pomona

Give back to

Pomona