Claudia Falconer Card, born on September 30, 1940 and died September 12, 2015, she was the Emma Goldman (WARF) Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with teaching affiliations in Women’s Studies, Jewish Studies, Environmental Studies, and LGBT Studies.
Claudia earned her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1962) and her M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. (1969) from Harvard University, where she wrote her dissertation under the direction of John Rawls.
Claudia joined the faculty in the philosophy department at Wisconsin straight from her Harvard studies.
She has held visiting professorships at The Goethe Institute (Frankfurt, Germany), Dartmouth College (Hanover NH), and the University of Pittsburgh.
She has written four treatises, edited or co-edited six books, and published nearly 150 articles and reviews.
She has delivered nearly 250 papers at conferences, colleges, and universities and has been featured in 29 radio broadcasts.
She delivered the John Dewey Lecture to the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA) in 2008.
In April 2011 Claudia became the President of the APA’s Central Division.
Her Presidential Address was “Surviving Long-Term Mass Atrocities: U-Boats, Catchers, and Ravens”.
In 2013, she was invited to deliver the Paul Carus Lectures, a series of three lectures delivered to the APA; these will be delivered at the Central Division in 2016.
In 2011, Claudia was awarded the University of Wisconsin’s Hilldale Award for excellence in teaching, research and service.
In nominating her for this award, her department chair, Russ Shafer-Landau, said, “Her books and articles have become as essential to feminist thinking as Das Capital is to labor theory.
You simply can’t do feminism without reading Card, and even if you don’t read Card, today’s feminism bears her mark so deeply that you may not even realize that you have in some other way digested her theoretical perspectives.”
Claudia was diagnosed with lung cancer in summer 2014, underwent treatment, and seemed to be doing fairly well. However, in early 2015, while attending a philosophy conference in Cleveland, Ohio, Claudia collapsed in her hotel room.
She was treated at the Cleveland Clinic, where she learned that her cancer had metastasized.
After radiation treatment, months of rehabilitation and therapy, Claudia Card died, surrounded by her family, on September 12, 2015, at the age of 74.