Bio

Melanie Johnson-Moxley has been teaching at Columbia College since August 2008, serving for three years as an adjunct lecturer in philosophy and currently as a visiting assistant professor of philosophy.

 

A self-described generalist, her research and teaching interests lie across the vast spectrum of comparative philosophy and the history of philosophy.

 

She has recently presented work at the American Philosophical Association Central Division meetings ("Sometimes, the Way to the Soul is Through the Gut: Confucius, Aristotle and the Role of Empathy in Moral Comprehension,” Feb. 2010 and "Our Jane and Gītā-Yoga: Non-Gender Exclusiveness of the Bhagavad-Gītā,” Feb. 2009) and at the Midwest Conference on Ethics (Columbia College, 2009 and 2010). She gave a talk on women in the history of philosophy at the 2011 Women's Leadership Conference in Columbia, Mo.

 

Her current projects include a presentation on the relationship between compassion (“active peace”) and environmental sustainability for the 2011 Earthdance-Columbia event, a paper comparing the “Way” of the Confucian Analects with the “Path” of the Bhagavad-Gītā, and an examination of constructive and destructive novelty in social contexts, invoking A. N. Whitehead and Simone de Beauvoir.

 

Johnson-Moxley received her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in May 2008. Her dissertation, "Vasubandhu's Consciousness Trilogy," explores the metaphysics and epistemology of an early Indian school of Buddhism, Yogācāra.

 

She has indexed several works, most recently J. N. Mohanty's two-volume Philosophy of Edmund Husserl (2009, 2011) and Bina Gupta's Indian Philosophy (2011).

 

She is a 2010 recipient of a University of Missouri Center for the Arts and Humanities research travel grant. She received a service award from the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy in October 2000 for her work as the group's first website developer.

 

She lives in Columbia, Mo., with her husband, David Moxley, MLS, three non-degreed cats and a dog that may yet finish obedience school.