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Ginger A. Hoffman, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

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Department

Office

Barbelin 273C

Phone

610-660-2883
Contact

  • Ph.D. in Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Yale University
    B.A. in Biology, Wesleyan University

  • Member, Executive Council of The Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry

    Founder and Organizer, Philadelphia Philosophy of Psychiatry Working Group

    Volunteer, The Wellness Alliance at Horizon House

  • Hoffman GA. Forthcoming. Collectively Ill: Reasons for Psychiatry to Think that Groups can Possess Mental Disorders. Synthese. DOI 10.1007/s11229-017-1379-y

    Hoffman GA and Hansen JL. Forthcoming. Prozac or Prosaic Diaries? The Gendering of Psychiatric Disability in Depression Memoirs. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology.

    Hoffman GA and Zachar P. 2017. RDoC’s Metaphysical Assumptions: Problems and Promises. In: Extraordinary Science: Responding to the Crisis in Psychiatric Research, Edited by Şerife Tekin and Jeffrey Poland. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 59-86.

    Hoffman GA. 2016. Out of Our Skulls: How the Extended Mind Thesis Can Extend Psychiatry. Philosophical Psychology 29(8): 1160-1174.

    Hoffman GA and Bluhm R. 2016. Neurosexism and Neurofeminism. Philosophy Compass 11(11): 716-729.

    Hoffman GA. 2014. The Self-Disrespect Objection to Bioenhancement Technologies: A Feminist Analysis of the Complex Relationship between Enhancement and Self-Respect. Journal of Social Philosophy 45(4): 498-521.

    Hoffman GA. 2013. Treating Yourself as an Object: Self-Objectification and the Ethical Dimensions of Antidepressant Use. Neuroethics 6(1): 165-178.

    Hoffman GA. 2012. What, If Anything, Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Gender Differences?  In: Neurofeminism: Issues at the Intersection of Feminist Theory and Cognitive Science, Edited by Robyn Bluhm, Anne Jacobson, and Heidi Maibom, Palgrave-MacMillan, 30-55.

    Hoffman GA, and Hansen, J. 2011. Is Prozac a Feminist Drug?  The International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 4(1): 89-120

  • Faculty Teaching Award, Saint Joseph's University, 2016 – 2017

    Institute of Catholic Bioethics Faculty Fellowship, Saint Joseph’s University

    National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship

    Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior Postdoctoral Fellowship

    National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship

    Phi Beta Kappa

  • My current work is in the philosophy of psychiatry, ethics, feminist theory, philosophy of disability, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science.  I employ advances in these areas of philosophy to endeavor to improve psychiatric and neuroscientific practices.  In various ways, I argue that embracing more complex and relational models of the self and mind—models that move beyond purely bodily and physicalist pictures but that remain scientifically-friendly—can engender more ethical and rigorous scientific and clinical practice, and can offer more liberatory conceptions of mental differences and distress.  More specifically, I am currently exploring and/or have explored:

    1. How harmful effects of psychiatric diagnosis may be eliminated by defending Mad Pride and neurodiversity perspectives, without necessarily jettisoning the positive effects of an illness perspective; 

    2. The potentially positive impact of relational and/or radical models of the mind and self (e.g. the extended mind; the relational self) on psychiatric diagnosis and treatment;

    3. How “mental illness” may be a property of families and groups, and how recognizing this may combat sanist notions of mentally different individuals as “damaged” or “broken”;

    4. The ethics of antidepressant and other psychopharmaceutical use;

    5. The feminist or anti-feminist effects of neuroscientific research.