Education
Ph.D., Princeton University, philosophy, 1977
Dissertation Title: “Reduction, Realism and the Mind”
Dissertation advisor: Thomas Nagel
B.A., Summa Cum Laude, Barnard College, Columbia University, 1972
Awards
National Medal of the Humanities, awarded by President Obama, 2015
Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Yale Univeristy, 2012
Freedom From Religion Foundation, Freethought Heroine, 2011
Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association, 2011
Humanist Laureate, International Academy of Humanism, 2008- .
Honorary Doctorate, Emerson College, 2008.
Guggenheim Fellow, 2006-2007
Radcliffe Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2006-2007
Koret International Book Award in Jewish Thought (“Betraying Spinoza”), 2006
Willard O. Eddy Lecture Award in Contemporary Philosophy, Colorado State University, 2006
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2005
MacArthur Foundation Fellow, 1996-2001. Citation:
Best Books of 2005 (“Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel”): Discover, Chicago Tribune, New York Sun
Bunting Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, 2001 (declined)
Honorary Doctorate, Spertus Institute, Chicago, Ill, 2000
Honors in Fiction, Massachusetts Book Awards (“Properties of Light”), 2001
100 Great 20th Century Works of Fiction by Women (“The Mind-Body Problem”), Feminista: The Journal of Feminist Construction, 2000
Bogliasco Foundation Fellow, 1998
Prairie Schooner Award for Best Short Story of 1997, University of Nebraska Press
Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Mazel, University of Hartford, 1996
National Jewish Book Award for Mazel, 1995
National Jewish Book Honor Award for Strange Attractors, 1994
Whiting Foundation Writer's Award, for The Dark Sister, 1993-94
American Council for Learned Societies Fellowship, 1984
Whiting Foundation Fellowship Award, philosophy, 1975-76
National Science Foundation Fellowship Award for philosophy of science, 1972-75
Montague Prize for excellence in philosophy, Barnard College, 1972
Employment
Professor of Philosophy, New College of the Humanities, London, U.K. 2012-
Research Associate, Harvard University, 2007-
New York University, Visiting Professor in Departments of Philosophy and English, 2016-18
Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College, Autumn 2013
Franke Visiting Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center,Yale University, Autumn 2012
Miller Scholar, Santa Fe Institute, Autumn 2011
Research Associate, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 2007- .
Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College, Hartford CT, 2001-2006
Scholar in Residence, Brandeis University, 1999-2000
Professor of Creative Writing, MFA Program, Columbia University, 1993-1996
Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Honors Program, Rutgers University, 1988-1990
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Barnard College, 1976-86
Books (nonfiction)
Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away (Pantheon, 2014) Published in the UK (Atlantic Grove, 2014) Translations into fourteen languages
Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (Nextbooks/Schocken, 2006).
Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (Atlas Books/Norton, 2005). Translated into twelve languages
Books (fiction)
Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (Pantheon, 2010). Published in the UK by Atlantic Grove; translated into 16 languages.
Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics (Houghton Mifflin, 2000). Translated into German.
Mazel (Viking, 1995, reissued by The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000). Translated into German.
Strange Attractors: Stories (Viking, 1993, Penguin, 1994). Translated into Italian.
The Dark Sister (Viking, 1993, reissued by the University of Wisconsin Press, 2004)
The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989)
The Mind-Body Problem (Random House, 1983; Dell, 1984; reissued by Penguin, 1994). Translated into German.