Jonathan Kwan
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BA Swarthmore College; PhD The Graduate Center, CUNY
Research Areas: Social and political philosophy, environmental philosophy, decolonial philosophy, philosophy of race, Chinese philosophy
Jonathan Kwan works in social and political philosophy, especially as it intersects with environmental philosophy, decolonial philosophy, and the philosophy of race. He is also interested in Chinese philosophy, the philosophy of art, feminist philosophy, and Buddhist philosophy. His current research projects investigate eco-political theories of territorial rights, Indigenous territorial rights, non-ideal theories of transitional legitimacy, the social ontology of the people, and eco-democratic Confucianism.
Kwan currently serves on the APA Committee on Asian & Asian American Philosophers & Philosophies. Before joining NYUAD, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. He completed his PhD in philosophy with a Women Studies Certificate at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and his BA at Swarthmore College, where he majored in philosophy and minored in religion and interpretation theory. In addition to Santa Clara University, he has taught at Hunter College, Brooklyn College, Baruch College, and LaGuardia Community College. He has also served as the Managing Editor for the Journal of Social Philosophy. Once upon a time, he was a third-grade teacher at Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School in Washington, DC.