It is with shock and profound sadness that we share with SPEP the news that Johanna Meehan died unexpectedly on January 8, 2024 from complications of a bacterial infection. Johanna was McCay-Casady Professor of Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at Grinnell College, where she had taught since 1990 and had just begun a phased retirement plan. Johanna was a scholar of the highest rank. Her primary focus was on the Critical Theory tradition, and she published articles in leading journals, including Philosophy and Social Criticism, Constellations, and Human Studies. She contributed essays to many volumes publishing work in Critical Theory, and she also edited a major contribution to this tradition: Feminists Read Habermas: Gendering the Subject of Discourse (Routledge, 1995). At the time of her passing, she was completing a book-length manuscript developing an intersubjective theory of the self. This project, the culmination of over two decades of research, draws on and brings together cutting-edge work in a wide range of fields, including Critical Theory, neuroscience, biology, psychoanalysis, and gender studies. Johanna was also a truly exceptional teacher at both the introductory and advanced levels, and her classes, including her senior seminars on Hannah Arendt and on Jürgen Habermas, were always filled to capacity. Several members of SPEP were her students while undergraduates at Grinnell, and she is acknowledged as a role model, mentor, friend, and major influence in their decision to pursue a future in academia. For more than a few current professors of philosophy, Johanna is the example they try to emulate. She will be missed by colleagues, students, and friends.
The Grinnell College Office of the Dean has shared this tribute, written by Johanna’s wife and a few colleagues and friends, and details of an event to celebrate Johanna’s life and career will be posted as soon as they are available: https://www.grinnell.edu/news/college-mourns-professor-johanna-meehan
