Hilde Lindemann is a philosophy professor and well known bioethicist currently teaching at Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

. Lindemann earned her M.A. at the University of Georgia

University of Georgia

The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...

 in theatre history and dramatic literature (1972) before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at Fordham University

Fordham University

Fordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...

 in 2000. Previously, she taught at the University of Tennessee

University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...

 and Vassar College

Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

 and served as the associate editor of the Hastings Center Report

Hastings Center Report

Since 1971, the Hastings Center Report has been one of the leading journals of bioethics in the United States. It is published six times each year by the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York. Gregory Kaebnick is the current editor....

 (1990–95). Lindemann currently teaches courses on feminist philosophy, identity and agency, naturalized bioethics, and narrative approaches to bioethics.

Contributions to Philosophy

Lindemann's work primarily focuses on feminist bioethics, the ethics of families, feminist ethics, and the social construction of identities. She is the former editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy is an academic journal that covers feminist philosophy. As of July 2008, the editorial office is hosted by the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. The editors are Alison Wylie and Lori Gruen .Hypatia has its roots in the...

and was also coeditor, with Sara Ruddick

Sara Ruddick

Sara Ruddick was a feminist philosopher and the author of Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace.. Ruddick taught philosophy at the New School of Social Research. She is best known for her analysis of the practices of thinking that emerge from the care of children...

 and Margaret Urban Walker, of the Feminist Constructions series for Rowman & Littlefield. In addition, she coedited, with James Lindemann Nelson, a series on Reflective Bioethics for Routledge. Lindemann is a Hastings Center Fellow, a member of the advisory board for the Women’s Bioethics Project (2006–), and was the president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (2008-2009;2010-2011).

Professional Publications

Lindemann has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals such as The Journal of Medical Ethics, The American Journal of Bioethics, The Hastings Center Report, Metaphilosophy, and Hypatia. Her books include Holding and Letting Go: The Social Practice of Personal Identities, An Invitation to Feminist Ethics, Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, Alzheimer’s: Answers to Hard Questions for Families, and The Patient in the Family. Lindemann has also edited five collections: Feminism and Families; Stories and Their Limits: Narrative Approaches to Bioethics; Rights, Recognition, and Responsibility: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory; Meaning and Medicine: A Reader in the Philosophy of Medicine; and, with Marian Verkerk and Margaret Urban Walker, Naturalized Bioethics (Cambridge 2008).

Awards and Distinctions

In addition to being named a Hastings Center Fellow and having been elected President of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, Lindemann was also awarded a NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) grant (2004-2008), a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, and several grants from the University of Tennessee including the Haines-Morris grant. Lindemann has also received a Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Bioethics and is both a Fulbright scholar (1969) and a Woodrow Wilson fellow (1969).

Selected Works

Holding and Letting Go: The Social Practice of Personal Identities. Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2012.

An Invitation to Feminist Ethics. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill, 2006. Chapter 1, “What Is Feminist Ethics?” reprinted in Russ Shafer-Landau, ed. The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Chapter 1 also reprinted in Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau, ed., Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy, 14th ed. (Boston: Wadsworth, 2011).

As Hilde Lindemann Nelson:

Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Alzheimer’s: Answers to Hard Questions for Families. New York: Doubleday, 1996 (with James Lindemann Nelson). In Dutch translation, Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1998.

The Patient in the Family. New York: Routledge, 1995 (with James Lindemann Nelson).

See also

American Philosophy

American Philosophers