Nancy Yousef

Nancy Yousef is Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University. She is the author of three books—Isolated Cases, Romantic Intimacy, and The Aesthetic Commonplace—as well as numerous essays on literature and philosophy from the 18th century to the present. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Humanities Center. In winter 2025, she will be a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University.

Thinking with Words: Undisciplined Readings in Modern Philosophy aims to revive dialogue between philosophers and literary critics by reminding both of their shared historical commitment to elucidating the role of language in shaping thought, articulating feeling, and reflecting on the conditions of meaningful thought and feeling. The book advocates for collaborative possibilities that philosophy and literary studies might together realize in the midst of a broader cultural reckoning with the value of the liberal arts.