I am an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University, a Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and core faculty in Georgetown's Disability Studies Program. I am the editor, along with Teresa Blankmeyer Burke, of the Journal of Philosophy of Disability.
At the broadest level, my work explores the relationship between bodies, values, and society. I am especially concerned with the meaning of disability and the issue of ableism, and how philosophical inquiry into each might improve the lives of people with disabilities and the justness of institutions ranging from medicine to politics. Currently, I am the co-director of a 2-year NEH Public Humanities grant project, The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability and Technology, chair of the Committee on Accessibility, Disability, and Inclusion for the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, and a board member (ex officio) of the Society for Philosophy and Disability.
I am the author or co-author of a dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, author of a forthcoming book with The University of Minnesota Press (Ethics After Ableism: Disability, Pain, and the History of Morality), co-editor with Christine Wieseler of a forthcoming edited volume with Routledge (The Disability Bioethics Reader), and lead editor with Erik Parens of a special issue of the Hastings Center Report (For All of Us? On the Weight of Genomic Knowledge). Recent work includes invited pieces for The Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology, Philosophy of Disability: New Perspectives, Applying Nonideal Theory to Bioethics, and The Oxford Handbook of Genetic Counseling, and a number of journal articles.
My current research is building towards three book-length projects (two of which are under review): one scholarly work engaging central debates in philosophy of disability (The Meaning of Disability), one introductory undergraduate text (Philosophy of Disability: An Introduction) and one public-facing work on the future of healthcare (Just Care: Politics, Public Health, and the Promise of Medicine). My public philosophy has been featured in TIME, The New York Times (forthcoming), HuffPost, AEON, and in a Tedx talk. I am also a regular contributor to the researcher-led news outlet The Conversation. Please see my website (https://www.joelreynolds.me) for more information.
