Keir Willett Henry G. Fairbanks Visiting Scholar in Philosophy

Bio

B.A. in Liberal Arts, Sarah Lawrence College, 2010
M.A. in Philosophy, the New School, 2014
Ph.D. in Philosophy, Tulane University, 2022

Areas of Expertise

Ancient Greek Philosophy, Ancient Chinese Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Philosophy and Literature

Courses I Teach

Philosophy and the Good Life
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Philosophy of the Tragic and Comic
Philosophy of Art and Literature
Asian Philosophy
Existentialism in Film and Literature
Nietzsche

About Professor Willett

One of the most beautiful things about philosophy is that no real distinction can be drawn between what we study and the act of studying it. My goal as a teacher is to nurture conversations in the classroom that metamorphose mysteriously and magically from talk about philosophy into philosophizing through talk.

Research

My primary passion is for authors who, like Plato or Zhuangzi, raise the most serious questions in a playful and poetic way, so that just to read their texts becomes a philosophical adventure.

Awards, Recognitions, Memberships

Tulane Philosophy Department Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2021

Recent News

I presented a paper on beauty in Plato and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite for the Humanities Center and Program at St. Michael’s College in November 2024.

I was invited to give a commentary on Alan Pichanick’s paper “What Does Socrates Learn from Diotima?” at the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy in March 2024.

I presented the paper “Heidegger and Plato’s Stranger on Dunamis: Possibility or Power?” at the American Philosophical Association Easter Division in Montreal in January 2023.

I defended my dissertation on Plato’s Sophist and Heidegger in July 2022.