College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Horn has named Shannon Winnubst, Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, as the interim chair of the Department of History of Art for the 2026-2027 academic year, effective July 1, 2026.

 

Winnubst's research focuses on critiques of anti-Blackness, queer/trans studies, psychoanalytic theory, and twentieth century French theory. She has taught courses in queer theory and Afro-Pessimism. She holds a BA from the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame and an MA and PhD in Philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University. Winnubst is trained in the history of western philosophy, particularly focused on French scholars across the twentieth century, especially Bataille, Foucault, Irigaray & Lacan. Winnubst has previous served as the Department Chair for the Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, 2016-2023, during which time she served as a member of the Terra Critica, an international and interdisciplinary research network in the critical humanities and on the Editorial Board of The Ohio State University Press (2016-2019).

 

In addition to numerous articles and essays, Winnubst has published three books: Queering Freedom (2006); Reading Bataille Now (editor; 2006); and Way Too Cool: Selling Out Race and Ethics (2015). She also co-edited, with Lynne Huffer, philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism 2013-18 and, with Jana Sawicki, a special issue of Foucault Studies, “Foucault and Queer Theory” (2012). Winnubst is currently completing a manuscript, entitled Whiteness in The Door of No Return, which engages Afropessimist critique as an inverted categorical imperative and develops the Door of No Return as an aperture onto Whiteness as an ontological structure.

 

 

We look forward to working with Professor Winnubst and welcome her leadership as our new interim department chair.