Alison’s main research interests are in:
Feminist philosophy
Post-Kantian continental philosophy - including Hegel and German Idealism; Marx and Marxism; critical theory and existentialism.
Aesthetics, especially the aesthetics of popular music
and the History of Philosophy, especially nineteenth-century philosophy and women in the history of philosophy
Women in nineteenth-century philosophy
My research interests span feminist philosophy, post-Kantian continental philosophy, the history of philosophy, and aesthetics.
Currently I am working on women in nineteenth-century philosophy. My work on this includes the edited collection Frances Power Cobbe: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Feminist Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2022), a Cambridge Element on Frances Power Cobbe (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford University Press, 2023) and most recently Women on Philosophy of Art: Britain 1770-1900 (Oxford University Press, 2024). The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century British and American Women Philosophers, co-edited with Lydia Moland, will be out in print in mid-2025.
Previously I've published books on Hegel's philosophy of nature, Luce Irigaray, feminist philosophy, popular music, German idealism, and birth. I've held a Philip Leverhulme Prize, a Leverhulme Fellowship and a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.
I've also edited the Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2011), and co-edited the Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy (Routledge, 2017).
I have co-edited the journal the Hegel Bulletin and been an associate editor and interim co-editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy.
I am particularly keen to supervise PhD projects in relation to my current interests in nineteenth-century women philosophers.
I teach Nineteenth Century Philosophy and History of Women Philosophers.
Career details
I obtained my DPhil from the University of Sussex in 1998 and after positions as lecturer and research fellow at the University of Cambridge I joined Lancaster University in 2002.
