I am a philosopher interested in the way in which human thought and practices contribute to the nature of reality. I have written on abstract theoretical questions related to how human conceptual practices may contribute to what the concepts are about and offered a non-realist theory of what makes a property essential to an object. Other theoretical work has explored essence and modality, response-dependence, realism and anti-realism, and naturalism. My current work is on topics at the intersection of theoretical and practical philosophy, especially metaphysics, social philosophy, and feminist theory. There I offer a theory of the construction of social categories (gender, sex, race, disability, etc.) and the role of social construction in oppression.
My book Categories We Live By was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.
The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy, co-edited with Kim Q. Hall, came in 2021.
I am Professor of Philosophy at Duke University and have a secondary appointment in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies.
Prospective PhD students: If you are interested in doing graduate work under my supervision here at Duke, please see information about the graduate program and the application process here: https://philosophy.duke.edu/graduate
A note on my name: Icelanders don't have surnames or family names and our names best treated as medieval or ancient European names (think of Hildegard of Bingen). This causes considerable confusion in academic publishing because databases treat my patronymic like a name. For this reason from 2017 on I publish under "Ásta" only. My suggestion for citing my earlier work is this: Ásta 2008 (published under "Ásta Sveinsdóttir"). In the case the database requires first and last name, I recommend doing "Ásta, Ásta".
I also hope that people looking for the Icelandic philosopher Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir can find this page.
My book Categories We Live By was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.
The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy, co-edited with Kim Q. Hall, came in 2021.
I am Professor of Philosophy at Duke University and have a secondary appointment in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies.
Prospective PhD students: If you are interested in doing graduate work under my supervision here at Duke, please see information about the graduate program and the application process here: https://philosophy.duke.edu/graduate
A note on my name: Icelanders don't have surnames or family names and our names best treated as medieval or ancient European names (think of Hildegard of Bingen). This causes considerable confusion in academic publishing because databases treat my patronymic like a name. For this reason from 2017 on I publish under "Ásta" only. My suggestion for citing my earlier work is this: Ásta 2008 (published under "Ásta Sveinsdóttir"). In the case the database requires first and last name, I recommend doing "Ásta, Ásta".
I also hope that people looking for the Icelandic philosopher Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir can find this page.