Chairing Current Dissertations

• Andy Marquis, "Natality and the Miracle of Philosophy: Hannah Arendt as Hermeneutic Phenomenologist"
• Paul-Anthony Turner, "Countering Christian Epistemic Absolutism: Resources from Heidegger's Phenomenology of Religion and Gianni Vattimo's Weak Thought"

Chair and Mentor for Recent Undergraduate Senior Theses and Awards

• Eriel Burns' Gaines Senior Thesis, "The Opioid Crisis: Bioethics, Law, and the Pharmaceutical Industry"
• Sophie O'Donnell's Lewis Honor's College Thesis, "Non-Disclosure Agreements: Legal Loopholes for Sexual Harassment"
• Mentor for my philosophy of law student, Thiana Thé's, undergraduate Breathitt Lecture Award

My research integrates two main elements of philosophy:

1. Existential experiences that point to a contemporary crisis or challenge that requires a new concept or framework (i.e., philosophy) to better understand it and to guide practical responses.
2. The ideas of major past thinkers -- in an evolving, more inclusive and multicultural canon – to use in new, creative ways to help us come up with these original concepts (e.g., Aristotle, Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hegel, Frederick Douglass, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt, Martin Luther King, and Daoism).

Some contemporary problems I address: 

1. The ambivalence, social impact, and existential challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI). On March 7-8, 2025, I organized the workshop Towards a Philosophy of AI: Life and the Philosophical Canon

   My main research investigates the harms of AI deepfake pornography, whose targets are 99% female. I consider it in terms of survivors’ experiences and Catharine MacKinnon’s feminist analyses of the harms of earlier technological forms of pornography and her legal initiatives on behalf of survivors. I also address it in terms of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology and Arendt’s original analyses of technology’s relation to ethical responsibility (e.g., “banality of evil”). This research stems from long-term work on sexual abuse, including pornography, trafficking, and #MeToo, and their international dimensions.

2. Sexual atrocities in war and genocide. I coined the term/concept of “rape as genocide” and, with Catharine MacKinnon, prosecuted it for the first time, in a case that pioneered this crime’s recognition under international law (Kadić v. Karadžić, Southern District of New York). This concept allows us to now identify this crime and related ones in contemporary global conflicts and helps us come up with new concepts that today’s conflicts demand. Arendt’s original insights about the Holocaust, genocide, and the Eichmann trial inform this research.
3. The governing Anglo-American academic philosophy’s marginalization of the discipline from genuine relevance to world problems. This marginalization stems from redefining philosophy in a way that makes it no longer about existential reflection triggered by life and world problems and accountability to them. And it stems from severing philosophy from its history, including learning from great past thinkers about how they understood philosophy’s vocation and about how philosophy’s past and other disciplines informed their original thinking. 

I have been a recipient of an American Association of University Women (AAUW) Fellowship, a Charlotte W. Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship in Ethics, a Fulbright Scholarship, and was offered a Hannah Arendt Center Fellowship. In 2024-2025, I was awarded a University of Kentucky CURATE grant (Celebrating University Research Across the Enterprise) to support my Philosophy and AI workshop.

“Heidegger, ‘The Intimate Technological Revolution,’ and AI,” 24^th Biennial International Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands (June 2025)

“The Harms of AI Deepfake Pornography,” Annual Meeting of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, Univ. of Turin, Italy (June 2025)

“Philosophical Imagination and AI Deepfake Pornography,” 10^th Science and Technology Studies Conf., Politecnico di Milano, Italy (June 2025)

“#MeToo, Digital and AI Technology, and Harms in the United States,” presented at my Roundtable on “#MeToo, Digital and AI Technology, and Resisting Oppression Across Borders and Disciplines: The US, Italy, and South Korea,” XXV World Congress of Philosophy, Rome (August 2024)

“Philosophy, Academic Philosophy, and the Berggruen Essay Prize,” Roundtable on “The Berggruen Essay Prize Competition: Fostering East-West Philosophical Dialogues on Contemporary and Future Challenges,” XXV World Congress of Philosophy, Rome (August 2024)

"Dao Holism, Hermeneutical Phenomenology, and the Current Crisis in Western Philosophy: Towards Philosophy that is Genuinely Relevant to Global Challenges," Roundtable on “East-West and Indigenous Dialogue on Philosophy’s Vocation, Social Innovation, and Technology,” XXV World Congress of Philosophy, Rome (August 2024); (Invited) East and West Philosophy in Dialogue -- From Worldview to Sustainable Order, The Pari Center, Italy (June 2023)

“Artificial Intelligence, Heidegger, Technology, and Freedom,” Annual Meeting of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Annual Circle,                 Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park (June 2024)

"Violence against Women and Social Media Technology: Towards a New Global Narrative," Workshop on Dialogue Between Civilizations on Global Commons, The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Vatican City (June 2023)

"Hermeneutical Phenomenology and the Pre-Cognitive, Practical, and Historical Sources of Concepts," Interlacing Concepts and Practices: Phenomenological Perspectives in Dialogue with Pragmatism and Analytic Philosophy, University of Padua, Italy (June 2023)

“Raphael Lemkin, Phenomenology, and the Concept of Genocide,” Society for the Philosophic Study of Genocide and the Holocaust, in association with the American Philosophical Assn. Central Division, Chicago (February 2020)

“Hannah Arendt, Genocide, and the Task of Philosophy: Between Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Logical Positivism,” Society for Phenomenology and The Human Sciences, at the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Pittsburgh (October 2019)

"Tourism as Transformative Experience," International Symposium: Tourism and Culture in Philosophical Perspective, Hvar, Croatia (October 2019)

"Philosophy in Search of Itself: Reflections on Robert C. Scharff's How History Matters to Philosophy: Rethinking Philosophy's Past After Positivism," (Invited) Panel on his book, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Memphis (October 2017)

"Philosophy, Genocide, and Sexual Atrocities," (Invited) NEH Challenge Grant Colloquium on "Gender, Mass Violence, and Genocide,"                                Kupferberg Holocaust Resource Center and Archives, Queensborough Community College, City University of New York (October 2015)

"Heidegger and the Ubiquity and Invisibility of Pornography in the Internet Age," Presented as part of a panel I organized "Gender, Justice, and Gestell: New Beginnings" at the Heidegger Circle Annual Meeting, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore (May 2015)

"Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism, and Continental Philosophy," (Invited) Panel celebrating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Catharine MacKinnon's Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, American Philosophical Association (APA) Pacific Division Meeting, Vancouver (April 2015)

"Heidegger, Pornography, and Technology: Rethinking Freedom in the Age of the Internet," Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP) -- Ireland,             University College Dublin (November 2014)

"Pornography and the Ambivalence of Modernity: A Heideggerian Critique," Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (PACT), Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles (October 2014)

"Sexual Violence and Objectification: A Heideggerian Historical Analysis from Aristotle to Enlightenment Political Thought," American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago (Aug.-Sept. 2013); also presented as an invited lecture at Kennesaw State Univ., Georgia (Nov. 2012)

"Pornography, Technology, and Closing off the Possibilities of Authentic Mitsein," Conference on "Discovering the 'We': The Phenomenology of Sociality," University College Dublin, Ireland (May 2013); also presented a version at the Annual Meeting of the Comparative and Continental Philosophy Circle, Fudan University, Shanghai, China (March 2013)

Organized and moderated "A Conversation with Karsten Harries" at The 47th Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle, New Haven, CT (May 2013)

"The Imperative of 'Thinking' After Auschwitz: The Genealogy of the Concept of Genocidal Rape," Society for the Philosophical Study of Genocide and the Holocaust at the American Philosophical Association (APA) Central Division Meeting, New Orleans (February 2013)

"Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité: Wollstonecraft contra Rousseau contra Aristotle," Northeastern Political Science Assn. Annual Mtng., Boston (Nov. 2012)

"Hannah Arendt, the United Nations, and the Srebrenica (Bosnia) Genocide," Int'l Political Science Assn. World Congress, Madrid, Spain (July 2012)

• What is Philosophy? (graduate seminar)
• History and Science in Post-Kantian Philosophy (grad/upper division)
• Philosophy, Context, and History (graduate seminar)
• Phenomenology (graduate/upper division)
• Philosophy of Law (grad/upper division)
• Philosophy of Law: Arendt and International Justice (graduate/upper division)
• Philosophy of Law: Catharine MacKinnon (graduate/upper division)
• Modernity, Pornography, Sex Equality (graduate seminar, Heidegger and technology oriented)
• Heidegger, Philosophy, and Nazism (graduate seminar)
• Heidegger's Being and Time (graduate seminar)
• Advanced Topics in Ethics: Arendt with Heidegger (also covering Hegel, graduate/upper division)
• Existentialism (graduate/upper division)
• Hegel
• Social Theory Graduate Seminar: Justice (co-taught with faculty from Literature, Sociology, and Anthropology)
• Epistemology and Ethics (upper division)
• Individual and Society
• Introduction to Legal Philosophy
• Philosophy and Pornography
• Introduction to Feminism and Philosophy
• Introduction to Political Philosophy
• Business Ethics
• Ethics
• Introduction to Philosophy
• Historical Perspectives on the Holocaust
• Introduction to Italian Literature
• Philosophy of Architecture

PHI 509 History and Science in Post-Kantian Philosophy (Graduate/upper division)

This course centers on principal figures of post-Kantian Philosophy as treated in Robert C. Scharff’s How History Matters to Philosophy: Reconsidering Philosophy’s Past After Positivism (2015) such as Dilthey, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. We examine how they reassert philosophy’s identity as a historical-humanistic enterprise distinct from the natural sciences, at a time when philosophy was losing its identity as the source of the sciences and was becoming, instead, an emulator of (an idea of) science. Moreover, philosophy was on a path to being reduced to logic and having little to do with life, existential concerns, and with philosophy’s past. We explore how these figures navigate a relation to scientific epistemology in their efforts to spell out an epistemology appropriate to philosophy and that resonates with contemporary concerns by figures such as Charles Taylor and Richard Rorty. In this examination, we interrogate what these canonical philosophers understood philosophy to be and how they did it. We thereby also appreciate some differences between academic philosophy and how these (and other) canonical figures understood philosophy’s vocation, differences that center on situated knowing of contemporary crises and generative relationships with philosophy’s past.

Student reviews:

• Perhaps my favorite course in all my philosophical studies. The text was PERFECT; I WANTED to read it. I just really appreciated this class
• This is the second class I’ve had with prof. Nenadic and with both her enthusiasm for the topic and knowledge of the content made being engaged in class easy. phenomenal professor.
• [The professor is] very enthusiastic and passionate about the material. This helped everyone become more interested in it.
• Dr. Nenadic knew the material inside and out, and was able to tie it to real world research…
• Dr. Nenadic prioritizes her students and it shows. She is very helpful and accommodating to different learning styles.
• The professor was extremely patient and understanding. The course material was difficult to understand, so she did a wonderful job at presenting the material and breaking it down bit-by-bit for the students.
• Very knowledgeable. Very respectful to students.
• I think she is probably one of the best professors that I know.

PHI 516 Phenomenology (Graduate/upper division)

This course introduces students to phenomenology, a late 19^th century and early 20^th century development in philosophy. We center on phenomenology as a response to modern philosophy’s increasing removal of philosophy from life concerns, from other disciplines, and from the great works of its past. We examine how phenomenology reasserted that philosophical problems arise from worldly challenges and crises, in their multifaceted expressions, and how it cast the relationship between those problems and philosophy’s past. The principal figures we cover are Dilthey, Husserl, and Heidegger, with a focus on the development of Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology in its connections to Dilthey’s beginnings and in its distinction from Husserl’s phenomenology. 

Student reviews:

• She brought an excitement that spread through the entire class for a solid 3 months. I felt guilty if I missed one class because of how much I learned in an hour.
• I wouldn’t “change” any aspects of the instructor or how the instructor approached the class. Dr. Nenadic even arranged it so that the author of the book we were reading visited the class and led us in a discussion. She went above and beyond to make the classroom a place where we felt valued and that our contributions were heard and mattered.
• The professor allowed us to meet with the author of the text and my God did that inspire me. What an amazing course
• Her willingness to answer any question and rephrase a concept in several ways was I think what made my success in this course possible.
• PHI 516 covered foundational ideas in a way I had not encountered before, because most other courses neglect the crucial foundational questions that were the focus of this course. The professor did a stellar job keeping us grounded in the core motivating questions of the course, too. PHI 516 has been a unique and amazingly consequential learning experience for that reason.
• Dr. Nenadic was very kind and knowledgeable.
• I would change nothing she is a star.

PHI 680 Philosophy, Context, and History (Graduate Seminar)

Since the rise of modern science and its aspiration to a God’s-eye view, in philosophy we have seen both an emulation of this stance (or some version of it) as well as an increasingly explicit grappling with the contextual and historical nature of thinking. The latter preoccupied 19^th century philosophers such as Dilthey and Nietzsche, who considered that stance impossible for philosophy (and ultimately for science) without the alternative being relativism, and culminated in the early 20^th century works of Heidegger. More recently, within non-mainstream analytic philosophy, post-positivists have also raised questions of context and history in philosophy. We examine this variety of considerations of the situatedness of thought and its ties to the past. We address issues of epistemology, ontology, and ultimately how we understand the nature and task of philosophy. Figures we may treat include Descartes, Comte, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Rorty, and Taylor. The course centers on analysis from Robert Scharff’s How History Matters to Philosophy: Reconsidering Philosophy’s Past After Positivism (2015).

Student review

• Well, the course content itself was very, very helpful. In particular, it connected the way of an inquiry to the being of the inquirer, and that was just fantastic. PHI 680 was the kind of course that challenges you to not just learn new bits of content, but challenges you to confront yourself as an inquirer and how you understanding yourself in how you do inquiry, and how that self-understanding is intimately connected to how you proceed in inquiry. For me, it brought to light things that were previously invisible. In addition to teaching me all-new things, the perspectives and materials provided by Dr. Nenadic and also my classmates helped me better understand things I’ve been struggling to understand – and even articulate at all – for literally a decade, since when I was in graduate school for an entirely different discipline. This was a terrific class.

PHI 715 Hannah Arendt, COVID-19, and Thinking in Dark Times (Graduate Seminar)

Student reviews:

• Dr. Nenadic has a particular orientation towards philosophy: namely, that it should be about the way we think about and love our lives. It should always be tied to experience, to understanding our moment, ourselves, and ourselves-in-our-moment. She refuses to do philosophy at an overly detached level from real life. As a result, her courses teach me so much about myself and my world. I think she is absolutely wonderful and I greatly admire her dedication.
• The instructor designed the course so that we would be synthesizing work from the history of philosophy with work in contemporary (and philosophically attuned) psychology, social science, and history. It was a really innovative seminar and served as an exemplar for how to do innovative philosophy that is relevant to life.
• Dr. Nenadic is an excellent teacher who cares about the material as well as her students. She was extremely encouraging and supportive in helping students develop their own projects.
• …the Professor encouraged us to think personally and creatively about the way in which philosophy is extremely important for making sense of our current political moment.
• It has been hugely instructive to participate in a collaborative process of destructive retrieval that is aimed at understanding a current crisis. It is heartening to be part of a course that deals with pressing issues – not just ‘issues’ in a scholarly sense, but existentially pressing real-world problems.