Kathleen Lennon is Ferens Professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, Director of Postgraduate Studies, and Research Director at the University of Hull

University of Hull

The University of Hull, known informally as Hull University, is an English university, founded in 1927, located in Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Career

After studying for her undergraduate degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 at the University of Kent

University of Kent

The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...

, Lennon obtained her master's degree

Bachelor of Philosophy

Bachelor of Philosophy is the title of an academic degree. The degree usually involves considerable research, either through a thesis or supervised research projects...

 and doctorate

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 from the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. In 1979, she was employed as a lecturer by the University of Hull. Lennon was one of the founders of the university's Centre for Gender Studies in 1986, and of the Society for Women in Philosophy in 1989.

After thirty years at the university, Lennon was appointed Ferens Professor of Philosophy. On 2 March 2009, she gave her inaugural lecture, entitled 'Re- enchanting the World: the role of Imagination in Perception', at the Middleton Hall lecture theatre.

Her research areas are gender theory

Gender studies

Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...

, the philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...

, and embodiment

Embodied cognition

Philosophers, psychologists, cognitive scientists and artificial intelligence researchers who study embodied cognition and the embodied mind believe that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. They argue that all aspects of cognition, such as ideas,...

, within the context of contemporary Anglo-American

Analytic philosophy

Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...

 and Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy

Continental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...

.

Publications

• Explaining Human Action (London: Duckworth, 1990).
• Philosophy of Mind, with Steve Burwood and Paul Gilbert (London: Taylor and Francis, 1998).
• Theorizing Gender, with Rachel Alsop and Annette FitzSimons (Cambridge: Polity, 2002).
• The World, the Flesh and the Subject: Continental Themes in Philosophy of Mind and body, with Paul Gilbert (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005).