John Lysaker, PhD

John Lysaker is the William R. Kenan University Professor. He was educated at Kenyon College and Vanderbilt University and has also taught at the University of Oregon, where he served as the Department Head of Philosophy and on the Executive Committees of Comparative Literature and Women's and Gender Studies. He came to Emory in 2009 as Professor of Philosophy. At Emory, he has served as Director of Graduate Studies and Chair of its Philosophy Department, and as the Chair of Emory College's Tenure and Promotion Committee.

Lysaker's central interest remains the good life writ large and various phenomena that enable and/or frustrate its emergence, including character and metacognition, artworks, serious mental illness, and friendship. Because ethical life courses through a wide field of usages and images, his work engages historical texts as well as contemporary philosophers alongside and in dialogue with poets, songwriters, musicians, and painters.

As a scholar, he has authored six monographs, co-authored another, and co-edited a collection of essays. In addition, he is the author of approximately seventy-five scholarly articles and chapters. In addition to regularly addressing national and international scholarly audiences, Lysaker is committed to public engagement, ranging from high school groups to art museums, religious communities, and civic agencies. All spaces are ethics spaces on his view, and ripe for conversations that can be prove transformative for everyone involved.