Johnathan Flowers
Assistant Professor

Brief Biography

My primary research areas include African American intellectual history and philosophy, Japanese Aesthetics, American Pragmatism, Philosophy of Disability, and Philosophy of Technology. I also work in the areas of Feminist Philosophy and affect theory, with a specific focus on the affective organization of identity.

Outside of philosophy, I also work in the areas of Disability Studies, Science and Technology Studies and Comics Studies, where I apply insights from American Pragmatism, Philosophy of Race, and Disability Studies to current issues in human/computer interaction, artificial intelligence and machine learning, identity in digital space, and representations of identity in popular culture.

I am currently working to develop a poetics of experience through the work of Audre Lorde by treating her theory of the Erotic as an affective integrative principle which unites the self into a qualitative whole. Lorde's principle of the Erotic as integrative, I believe, is what enables a unity of experience throughout the various aspects of Lorde's philosophy.

My first monograph, Mono no Aware and Gender as Affect in Japanese Aesthetics and American Pragmatism was published by Lexington Books in 2023.

Research 

Africana Philosophy Japanese Philosophy American Pragmatism Philosophy of Gender Philosophy of Disability Philosophy of Technology Philosophy of Race Aesthetics Feminist Philosophy Philosophy of Science

Connections