Last Updated: August 2025
Kathryn Lawson
Faculty Fellow at University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia
RESEARCH AREAS
Areas of Specialization: 20th and 21st century philosophy, ethics (environmental), social and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion.
Areas of Competency: Aesthetics, Indian philosophy, ancient philosophy (Plato), early modern philosophy (Descartes), intersections of literature, art, and philosophy.
EMPLOYMENT
Faculty Fellow
2024-2027 First Year Program, University of King’s College, Department of Humanities.
Lecturer (Full Course)
2025
Environmentalism, second year undergraduate course. Contemporary Studies Department, University of King’s College, Halifax. Course design and instruction.
Happiness, Wellbeing, and the Goodlife, second year undergraduate course. Philosophy Department, Carleton University. Course design and instruction. TA management. Online.
2024
Introduction to Environmental Ethics, second year undergraduate course. Philosophy Department, Carleton University. Course design and instruction. TA management. In-person.
Evil and Ethics, first year seminar course, philosophy department, Carleton University. Course design and instruction. In-person.
Happiness, Wellbeing, and the Goodlife, second year undergraduate course. Philosophy Department, Carleton University. Course design and instruction. TA management. Online.
2023
Theories of Knowledge, first year college course. Humanities department, Cégep Heritage College, Gatineau, PQ.
Happiness, Wellbeing, and the Goodlife, second year undergraduate course. Philosophy Department, Carleton University. Course design and instruction. TA management. Hyflex (online and in-person).
Introduction to Environmental Ethics, second year undergraduate course. Philosophy Department, Carleton University. Course design and instruction. TA management. In-person.
2022
The Citizen and the State, first year undergraduate course. Philosophy Department, Queen’s University. Course design and instruction. TA management. In-person (partially online due to COVID-19).
2019
Philosophy of Religion, second year undergraduate course. Philosophy Department, Queen’s University. Course design and instruction. TA management. In-person.
EDUCATION
2022 Ph.D., Philosophy, Queen’s University, (Kingston, ON).
Dissertation: Decreation for the Anthropocene.
Summary: This dissertation places the philosophy of Simone Weil into conversation with contemporary environmental concerns in the Anthropocene by drawing on Weil’s unique reading of Plato and the debates of contemporary ecological thinkers.
Committee: Mick Smith (Chair), Lisa Guenther, Jacqueline Davies (Queen’s), Internal External: Molly Wallace (Queen’s), External Reviewer: Stephen Plant (Cambridge).
2020 Visiting Graduate Student Fellowship, Cambridge University, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, UK (Simone Kotva).
2017 Master of Arts, Center for the Study of Theory and Criticism, Western University (London, ON).
Dissertation: The Tapestry of Memory.
Summary: This dissertation posits the subject as transcending the solipsistic and limited parameters often delineated by death by suggesting that human subjectivity is always intersubjective and as such involves a shared temporality with others beyond death.
Committee: Antonio Calcagno (Chair), Jan Plug, Claudia Clausius, Helen Fielding.
2016 Summer School, Theory and Criticism, Cornell (Branka Arsic).
2015 Summer School, Tilburg University, Netherlands (Simon Critchley).
2015 Bachelor of Arts (Honors Specialization in Philosophy) King’s, Western University (London, ON). Dean’s Honor List.
HONOURS AND AWARDS
Doctorate- Philosophy at Queen’s University Kingston, Canada
2020 Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship- Doctoral, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, $105 000.
David Edney Travel Fund, $2 000.
Junior Weilienne Scholar Grant, American Weil Society, $350.
Canada Graduate Scholarships Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplements, $6000.
2019 The Dr. H. Martyn Estall Graduate Award in Philosophy to attend the Canadian Philosophy Association Conference, $850.
Nominated for Excellence in Teaching Assistance Award, Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Society.
2018 Robert Charles Wallace Graduate Award, $7,000.
Ontario Humanities Graduate Scholarship, $15,000.
2017 R.S. McLaughlin Fellowship, $10,000.
Entrance Scholarship, $13,000.
Master’s Degree- Theory and Criticism Centre at Western University, Canada
2017 Hutchins Prize: Best Paper at Art, Nature and the Sacred Conference, Gonzaga
University, Spokane Washington, $200.
2016 Canadian Graduate Scholarship , $17,500.
2015 Director's entrance Scholarship, $2,000.
Ontario Graduate Scholarship, $15,000.
Undergraduate Degree- Honors Philosophy- King’s College at Western University, Canada
2014 John and Mary Snyder Philosophy Scholarship , $400.
2013 The Great Philosopher’s Award, $2,000.
2013 John and Mary Snyder Scholarship, $400.
2012 King's Continuing Scholarship for students with an average over 90%
2011 King's University College Entrance Scholarship.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Ecological Ethics and the Philosophy of Simone Weil: Decreation for The Anthropocene. Taylor and Francis Routledge Environmental Humanities Series, series ed. Benjamin Hale. 2024.
Editor and Introduction to The Politics of Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil: Unprecedented Conversations. Bloomsbury. 2024.
Editor and Introduction to Breached Horizons: Essays on the Work of Jean Luc Marion. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.
Peer Reviewed Articles
“Art and the Other: Aesthetic Intersubjectivity in Gadamer and Stein,” Symposium Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2020), 74-91.
“The Ethical Imperative of Reincarnation in the Timaeus and the Bhagavad Gita,” Symposia: The Journal of Religion, University of Toronto, 2019. https://symposia.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/symposia/article/view/29347
Book Chapters
“Enacting Decreation,” in Rethinking Responses to Political Crisis and Collapse: Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. ed. Antonio Calcagno and Mark Yenson. Lexington. Forthcoming.
“Key Concepts: Attention,” The Routledge Companion to Simone Weil, eds. Deborah Casewell and Chistopher Thomas. Forthcoming.
“Decreation” in Bloomsbury Handbook of Simone Weil, ed. Lissa McCullough. Forthcoming.
“Dark Nights of the Soul,” in Edith Stein and Simone Weil: Two Women in the 20th Century, eds. Anna Jani and Mátyás Szalay. Lexington. Forthcoming.
“Ecological Resilience,” in Rural Resistance. Durham, NC: Pivot Press, The Center on Modernity in Transition. Forthcoming.
“The Joy of Literary Friendship,” in Each life a Poem: 20 Years of Halifax Humanities, eds. Susan Dodd and Neil Robertson. Forthcoming.
“An Ethics of God’s Grace to Balance a Politics of Worldly Affliction: A Weilian Response to Roncalli on Arendt and the World” in The Politics of Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil: Unprecedented Conversations, eds. Kathryn Lawson and Joshua Livingston. Bloomsbury. 2024.
“One Hand Clapping: Anatheism and Contemporary Eastern Art” in The Art of Anatheism: Essays on the work of Richard Kearney, eds. Matthew Clemente and Richard Kearney. London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.
Book Reviews
Review of Simone Weil’s Political Philosophy: Field Notes from the Margins, by Benjamin P. Davis. The Review of Politics, Notre Dame University, 2024.
“The Pandemic of Force.” Review of Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way we Live, by Nicholas A. Christakis. Attention: The Life and Legacy of Simone Weil. Online, 2021.
Other
Special Editor, “Simone Weil and the Good Use of School Studies,” Attention: The Life and Legacy of Simone Weil Journal, ed. Ron Collins. January 2025.
“Intolerably Stupid No More: Jane Austen,” FYP Journal: The Maenad Edition, eds. Susan Dodd, Maria Euchner, and Abigail McGhie. Winter 2025.
Decreation for the Anthropocene: Simone Weil and Ecological Ethics. Department of Philosophy Graduate Theses, Queen’s University. PhD Dissertation. 2022. https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/handle/1974/30301
“Attention in the Time of COVID-19.” Object Tales. Cambridge Faculty of Divinity Online.
The Tapestry of Memory. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 4866. Master’s Thesis. 2017. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4866
PAPER PRESENTATIONS
2025
Invited Speaker Series: “Simone Weil and Attention,” University of Galway, Ireland.
Invited and Fully Funded talk: “Simone Weil for an Age of Inattention,” King’s University at Western, public lecture with Philosophy for Today’s World series.
“Dark Nights of the Soul: Mysticism in Edith Stein and Simone Weil” at VIII International IASPES Conference Edith Stein in Dialogue, Washington, DC.
“Simone Weil and Environmental Attention,” at ACLA Ecology, Ecstasy, Mysticism, Binghamton University, online.
“The Philosophy of Hamlet” at ACTC Leading Between the Lines: Core Texts and Public Leadership, Madison, Wisconsin. Fully Funded.
“Ecological Attention and the Philosophy of Simone Weil” at University of King’s College First Year Program Faculty Fellow Symposium, Halifax.
2024
“Simone Weil and Ethical Ecological Attention,” at Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Rochester, NY.
Panel on “Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil: Unprecedented Conversations,” at Society for Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture Conference, Congress of the Humanities, McGill University. Cancelled due to strike.
2023
“Simone Weil and Climate Activism” at The Worldly Weil Workshop, Washington University, St. Louis, May 30- June 1, 2023. Full funding for travel and accommodations from the John Danforth Centre for Religion and Politics.
“The Relational Self: Simone Weil, Plato, and Decreation as Community Building Selfhood” at Society for Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture Conference, York University. Full paper accepted through blind review. Unable to attend due to schedule conflict with Worldly Weil Workshop.
“Weilian Ethics and Environmental Racism” at The American Weil Society annual conference, Colorado University, Boulder, April 14-16, 2023. Attended virtually.
“L’Enracinement: Finding Roots for Climate Activism” at Life Beyond the Anthropocene conference, King’s College at Western University, London, ON.
2022
“Enacting Decreation” at the American Weil Society annual conference, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN. Online attendance.
2021
Invited and fully funded talk: “Creation/ Destruction” Café Philo series run by the interdisciplinary arts organization, Inter Arts Matrix, Kitchener, Ontario, Dr. Katy Fulfer (moderator).
“Decreation for the Anthropocene” at the American Weil Society annual conference, Boston College, MA. Online due to COVID-19.
2020
“Decreating Plato: An Ecological Reading of the Phaedrus with Simone Weil” at the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, Toronto, Ontario. Online due to COVID-19.
“Decreation as Destruction or as Creation?” at the Trans disziplin Denʞkollektiv’s conference Death | text | resonance: Simone Weil and Writing to(wards) Death, Erfurt and Berlin, Germany. Online due to COVID-19.
“Simone Weil's Ethics: The Confluence of Faculty and Action” at the American Weil Society Annual Conference, Boston College. Awarded the Junior Weilienne Scholarship, $350. Online due to COVID-19.
2019
“The Cartesian Other: Intersubjectivity in Descartes” at Canadian Philosophical Association Annual Conference, University of British Columbia.
“Environmental Ethics in Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace: The Absence of Nature and God” at The Existential Phenomenological Theory and Culture Annual Conference.
“Art and the Other: Aesthetic Intersubjectivity” and “Anatheism and Buddhist Art” at Oxford University’s Mystical Theological Network: Metaphor, Making and Myth Conference, Boston College.
2018
“Margaret Atwood and a Feminist Aesthetics of the Small Screen” at The American Society of Aesthetics. Student Travel Award of up to $1250 USD.
“Irigaray’s Temple” at Irigaray Circle 2018 Conference, Brock University, St. Catherine’s Ontario.
“A Glass of Whiskey: Memory and Art” at Undisciplined 2018 Cultural Studies Graduate Conference, Queen’s University.
2017
“Unearthing Ethical Relations in the Temple: Heidegger, Hegel, and Irigaray” at Heidegger: Dwelling, Thinking and the Ethical Life, The Centre for Advanced Research in European Philosophy (King’s University College).
“Re-Imagining God among the Sodden Cigarette Ends: James Baldwin and Emmanuel Levinas” at Toxic/cities: An interdisciplinary conference in Theory, Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Western Ontario.
“One Hand Clapping: Anatheism and Buddhist Art” at Art, Nature and the Sacred Conference, Gonzaga University, Spokane Washington. Awarded the Hutchins prize for best paper at the conference and $200.
2015
“The Sunset of Dissolution: Nietzsche and Kundera making sense of the eternal return” at Simon Critchley’s Nihilism Summer School, University of Tilburg, Netherlands.
FURTHER EMPLOYMENT
Guest Lecturer
2025
Marxism and Ecology: Marx, Luxemburg, and Contemporary Ecological thought. For Russell Duvernoy, Planetary Ethics and Social Transformation, third year undergraduate course, King’s University at Western.
Attention and Encounter: Simone Weil and Jan Zwicky. For Russell Duvernoy, Philosophy of Encounter, second year undergraduate course, King’s University at Western.
Simone Weil and The Iliad. For Halifax Humanities, a non-profit organization that offers university-level, non-credit Humanities classes to adults living on low incomes, free of charge.
2019
On Feminist Aesthetics including Linda Nochlin and Anne Eaton. For Jacquelyn Maxwell, Philosophy and Feminism, third year undergraduate course, Queen’s University.
2018
On the first three speeches of Plato’s Symposium. For Jaqueline Davies, Philosophy: Gender, Sex and Love, second year undergraduate course, Queen’s University.
2017
On aesthetics in Continental Philosophy including Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Walter Benjamin. For Deborah Knight, Aesthetics, third year undergraduate course, Queen’s University.
2016
On Monique Wittig, Hélène Cixous, and Jacques Derrida. For Antonio Calcagno, French Thought, fourth year undergraduate seminar course, King’s College at Western University.
Teaching Assistance
2021
Moral Issues, first year undergraduate course. For Jacqueline Davies, Philosophy Department, Queen’s University. Online due to COVID-19.
2020
Social Diversity and Political Resistance in a Global Pandemic, second year undergraduate course. For Lisa Guenther, Philosophy Department, Queen’s University. Principal’s Dream Course. Online due to COVID-19.
2020
Science and Society, second year undergraduate course. For Mark Smith, Philosophy Department, Queen’s University. Online.
2018- 2019
Fundamental Questions: Introduction to Philosophy, first year undergraduate course. For Jacqueline Davies, Queen’s University. Nominated for excellence in Teaching Assistance award from the Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Society.
2018
Philosophy: Gender, Sex, and Love, second year undergraduate course. For Jaqueline Davies, Queen’s University.
2017
Aesthetics, third year undergraduate course. For Deborah Knight, Queen’s University.
2016
Girlhood Studies, second year undergraduate course. For Miranda Green- Barteet, Gender Studies department, Western University.
Research Assistant
2018
Editor. For Paul Fairfield. Artistic Creation: A Phenomenological Account. Lexington Books, 2019.
2016
Editor. For Stephen Lofts. Translation of Ernst Cassirer’s The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.
2013- 2014
Editor. For Paul Werstine. English department, King’s College at Western University and editor of Folger Shakespeare Library.
2014
Editor. For Julius Kei Kato, Religious Studies, King’s College at Western University.
2013
For Leslie Harmann. Sociology department, King’s College at Western University.
ACADEMIC SERVICE AND ACTIVITIES
2024- 2025
Dining Services Committee Faculty Representative, University of King’s College.
Board Member, American Weil Society. Webmaster. Organization and execution of virtual reading group. Organization and execution of graduate student workshops: www.simoneweilsociety.org
2021-2022
Editorial Assistant Assistant to the Editor, Ronald Collins for a comprehensive Simone Weil website, journal, and archives project: Attention: https://attentionsw.org/
2013-Present Conference Work
2027
Organizer: American Weil Society Annual Colloquy
2025
Moderator: Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, for Panel “Animal Life and the Anthropocene.
2021
Organizer: The Self and the Selfless: Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil on Individual Action in Dark Times, Philosophy department, Queen’s University, three-day interactive online conference.
2019
Moderator: Iris Murdoch: Perspectives on Moral Philosophy, Philosophy department, Queen’s University.
Organizer: Imagining Otherwise: Radical Alterity, Social Justice, and Philosophies of Difference, Philosophy Department, Graduate Equity Collective. A two-day graduate conference at Queen’s University.
2017
Organizer: Toxic/cities: An interdisciplinary Graduate conference in Theory, Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature, Western University.
2017- 2022 Philosophy Graduate Student Association Work
2021 Co-Chair.
2020 Chair.
2019 Committee of Graduate Studies.
Webmaster.
2018 Graduate Student Colloquium Facilitator.
Graduate Representative in Equity and Women in Philosophy.
Graduate Equity Collective (founding member).
2017 Graduate Representative in Equity and Women in Philosophy.
Extra Curricular
2025
Organizer of Lecture Series on Environmental Racism in Nova Scotia.
Co-organizer for informal lecture and discussion series on Friendship with the King’s Chapel.
2024
Co-Organizer: Read Now play readings with King’s Students.
Halifax Humanities, Jane Austen Live! Marathon Reading.
2018
Organizer: Equity, Philosophy, and Film Movie Night Series.
2013
Writer and Director: Staged reading of “The Divine Tragedy: The Theatre of the Absurd and Existentialism Explore an Absurd Treatment of Human Existence” at King's College at Western University.