Gina Zavota

Gina Zavota is Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator of Philosophy at Kent State University. She graduated magna cum laude with a B. A. in Philosophy from New York University, where she also studied painting and creative writing. In addition, she earned a B.A. in Mathematics from Hunter College (CUNY) before returning to philosophy and obtaining her Ph.D. from Stony Brook University.

While a doctoral student, she studied in Wuppertal, Germany for three years, two of which were supported by a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellowship. She has also lived and conducted research in Brussels and Leuven, Belgium, with a Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) fellowship, and in Cairo as an associate of the American University in Cairo.

Her areas of specialization include 20th and 21st century Continental philosophy, particularly phenomenology and contemporary ontology, and Ancient Greek philosophy. She also has research interests in the philosophy of art, the philosophy of mathematics, and Buddhist thought. She is the co-editor (with Rudolf Bernet and Donn Welton) of the five-volume set, Edmund Husserl: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, and has published numerous scholarly articles and German translations. 

Her most cited articles include:

1. “Emanation and Virtuality in Plotinus and Deleuze,” in Contemporary Encounters with Ancient Metaphysics, ed. Abraham Jacob Greenstine and Ryan Johnson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2017).
2. “Expanding the Extended Mind: Merleau-Ponty’s Late Ontology as Radical Enactive Cognition,” Essays in Philosophy 17.2 (2016): 94–124.
3. “The Importance of Number in Husserl’s Early Theory of Time-Constitution,” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 40.2 (2009): 188–206.

At Kent State, she often teaches Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Philosophy and Art in the Modern Age, Ancient Greek Philosophy, and Medieval Philosophy. She was the co-organizer of the Husserl in a New Generation conference and is currently serving as grievance officer of the Kent State Chapter of the American Association of University Professors. She is currently completing a manuscript on Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology.