Alisa Bierria

Alisa Bierria

Assistant Professor

Affiliation: Gender Studies

Phone: 310-206-8101

Research Interest

Black Feminist Theory, Gender Violence and Redress, Feminist and Queer Carceral Studies, Agency and Intentionality, Feminist Epistemology

Biography

Alisa Bierria is an assistant professor in the Department of Gender Studies at UCLA. A Black feminist philosopher, Alisa’s writing and collaborative projects focus on racialized gender violence and critical acts of survival. She is developing a manuscript entitled, Missing in Action: Agency, Race, & Invention, which explores how intention is imagined and invented within structures of anti-black racism, carceral reasoning, and gendered violence. Highlighting insights from Black women’s agentic practices in conditions of violence, she proposes a pluralistic framework for agency that can account for intentional action within contexts of domination. Alisa’s writing is published in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Social Justice, and in numerous scholarly volumes, public anthologies, and op/eds. She is also a co-editor of the volumes, Abolition Feminisms: Organizing, Survival, and Transformative Practice (Haymarket Books, 2022) and Community Accountability: Emerging Movements to Transform Violence, a special issue of Social Justice (2010). An advocate and organizer within the feminist anti-violence movement for over 20 years, Alisa has co-founded and co-led several national organizations, including Survived & Punished, which advocates for the decriminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Publications

2023 – “Structural Racism within Reason.” American Philosophical Quarterly 60, no. 4.

2023 – “Being Time.” Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 9, no. 2.

2023 – “Against Inevitability.” American Quarterly 75, no. 2.

2022 – Report by Survived & Punished, co-edited by Alisa Bierria and Colby Lenz. “Defending Self-Defense: A Call to Action by Survived & Punished.” 

2020 – “Racial Conflation: Agency, Black Action, and Criminal Intent.” Journal of Social Philosophy.

2020 – “Grassroots Philosophy & Going Against the Grain.” In Philosophy for the Real World: An Introduction to Field Philosophy with Case Studies and Practical Strategies, edited by Evelyn Brister and Robert Frodeman (Routledge, 2020).

2019 – Co-written with Colby Lenz. “Battering Court Syndrome: A Structural Critique of Failure to Protect.” In The Politicization of Safety: Critical Perspectives on Domestic Violence Responses, edited by Jane Stoever (NYU Press, 2019).

2017 – “Pursuing A Radical Anti-Violence Agenda Inside/Outside a Non-Profit Structure.” In The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, edited by Incite! (Duke University Press, 2017).

2016 – Co-written with Onion Carillo, Eboni Colbert, Xandra Ibarra, Theryn Kigvamasud’Vashti, and Shale Maulana. “Taking Risks: Implementing Grassroots Community Accountability Strategies.” In Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology, edited by Incite! (Duke University Press, 2016).

2014 – “Missing in Action: Violence, Power, and Discerning Agency.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 29, no. 1

2012 – “‘Where Them Bloggers At?’: Reflections on Rihanna, Accountability, and Survivor Subjectivity.” Social Justice 37, no. 4.

2012 – Co-edited with Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo and Mimi E. Kim. Social Justice, Special Issue: Community Accountability: Emerging Movements to Transform Violence 37, no. 4.

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, Stanford University, 2018 B.A., Philosophy, Cornell University, 1997

Awards

  • American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship
  • Digital Justice Seed Grant, American Council of Learned Societies
  • Freedom Scholar Award, Marguerite Casey Foundation
  • Hellman Fellowship, Hellman Family Foundation
  • Engaging Humanities Research Grant, University of California Humanities Research Institute
  • Colorlines 20 x 20 Recognition, Colorlines, Race Forward
  • University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • Diane J. Middlebrook Prize for Graduate Teaching, Stanford University
  • University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies, UC Berkeley (2018)

Projects

Books

1

In the Media