The Office of the Provost announced Dr. Alison Bailey has been named University Professor for Illinois State University.
Bailey joined the Illinois State University faculty in 1993 as an interdisciplinary hire between the Department of Philosophy and what was then called the Women’s Studies Program. Now known as Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, she has directed the program for almost 20 years.
Bailey is a nationally recognized scholar in her discipline, but she started out as a peace activist. “I never set out to teach philosophy,” she remarked, “but I knew that I loved it. In hindsight, the moral and epistemic dimensions of my social justice activism have been at the heart of my scholarship for three decades.”
Trained as a feminist philosopher, Bailey’s scholarship engages questions at the intersections of philosophy of race, critical whiteness studies, and epistemic injustice. She has published two books, 10 invited book chapters, and numerous journal articles. She has co-edited two anthologies, guest-edited two special journal issues, and co-edited The Feminist Philosophy Reader (2008). She has given more than 50 conference presentations, including a recent author-meets-critics panel on her book at the American Philosophical Association meetings. According to Chris Horvath, “her recent book, The Weight of Whiteness: Feminist Meditations on Privilege, Race and Ignorance (2021) has rapidly become recognized by scholars “as essential reading on the epistemologies of ignorance and white privilege.” Bailey’s recent research project on privilege and anesthesia continues the “weighty conversation” she began in the book.
Bailey has a reputation as a gifted and dedicated teacher and mentor. Her impact will be felt for many years as a significant number of her students have gone on to become university professors. She also continues to mentor many young faculty on campus.
