Background
Melissa Zinkin is a professor of philosophy at Binghamton University.
Her research focuses on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and probes Kant’s texts for ways to conceive of kinds of value that do not rely on quantitative measures and systems of exchange. This has often led Zinkin to focus on Kant’s writings on aesthetics as a resource for such non-instrumental conceptions of value.
She is also interested in the contemporary philosophy of art and social and political philosophy, including feminist philosophy.
Zinkin has been a visiting scholar at Princeton University, National Taipei University and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. She is currently the chair of the Committee on the Defense of the Professional Rights of Philosophers for the American Philosophical Association and a Binghamton University representative for the SUNY Senate.
Select Publications
- Depth: A Kantian Account of Reason (Oxford University Press, 2024)
- The Art and Aesthetics of Capitalism, guest editor with Brian Soucek, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
- “Counterpurposiveness in Kant's Account of Theodicy and the Sublime” in Theodicy and the Problem of Evil. Eds. Pablo Muchnik and Lawrence Pasternack, Bloomsbury (forthcoming).
- “Kant on Wonder as the Motive to Learn,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 55: 3 (2021): 921-934.
- “Two Kinds of Feminist Philosophy,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 99: 4 (2018): 207-227.
Education
- BA, Brown University
- MA, Northwestern University
- PhD, Northwestern University
Research Interests
- Kant
- Philosophy of art
- Social and political philosophy
Teaching Interests
- Kant
- Philosophy of the Enlightenment
- Philosophy of art
- Feminist philosophy
- Markets, ethics and the law
Awards
- Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching