Shannon Winnubst
Contact Information
- winnubst.1@osu.edu
- Phone
- 614-292-3915
Areas of Expertise
- critiques of anti-Blackness
- queer/trans studies
- psychoanalytic theory
- twentieth century French theory (Bataille, Foucault, Lacan, Irigaray)
Education
- B.A., University of Notre Dame, Program of Liberal Studies (“Great Books Program”), 1988
- M.A., Pennsylvania State University, Philosophy, 1991
- Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, Philosophy, 1994
Recent Research
I am completing a manuscript,Whiteness in The Door of No Return: An Invitation, that was solicited by Duke University Press a long, long time ago (alas). A sustained meditation on Dionne Brand’s iconic A Map of Door of No Return: Notes on Belonging, the book traces the specific forms of ontological exertion we White individuals, communities, and institutions need to engage, if we want to inhabit the Door of No Return. With particular attention to the radical reorientations of epistemic and affective pathways, I ground myself in Black and Brown diasporic voices (Èdouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter, James Baldwin, and others) to meditate on the complexities of cathecting with the Door of No Return as the birthplace of Whiteness, including the Afropessimist indictment.
I am also working on a collaborative project, Pernicious Hope: A Conversation on ALS, Palliative Care, and Death, that focuses on the complex histories, affects, cathexes, and linguistic formations of Hope, particularly as it emerges in the medical practices and care networks around people living with ALS. This project is rooted in conversations with my colleague, Philip Armstrong (PhD, Art History), as he was diagnosed with ALS and has since passed away. The co-authors are three colleagues from OSU: Elyse Everett (MD), David Horn (PhD, Anthropology), and Stephen Kolb (MD). Both death and grief also figure largely in the Whiteness in the Door of No Return manuscript. Together, the two projects examine two sides of White relations to death: the murderous ontology and the exceptional loss of an individual.
Books
For further publications focusing on a range of themes and intersections in the fields of queer theory, feminist theory, and twentieth century French philosophy (especially Bataille, Foucault, Irigaray, and Lacan), please see my website on academia.edu.
- Queering Freedom (Indiana UP: 2006)
- Reading Bataille Now, Editor (Indiana UP: 2006) (2007 Choice Outstanding Title)
- Way Too Cool: Selling Out Race & Ethics (Columbia UP: 2015)