Sarah Linda Scott

Overview

I teach and conduct research in ethics and the history of philosophy, particularly forgotten or interdisciplinary philosophers. My current research is on Frances Power Cobbe, a forgotten nineteenth-century philosopher who worked on the rights of women and the rights of non-human animals. My first area of research was on Martin Buber; I am the editor of the book Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form (Indiana University Press, 2022) and have published several studies of Buber’s ethics, aestheticism, and forgotten influences. I have held National Humanities Center (2024-25) and Huntington Library (2023) fellowships, and the Culture and Animals Foundation Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellowship at the North Carolina State University Libraries (2024).

In my teaching and research I aim to expand our understanding of what philosophy has been and who has been a philosopher, in order to open future doors. All of my classes encourage reflection on ethics and philosophy as a way of life, preparing students for lives of meaning and purpose.

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and by the same token save it from that ruin which except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.” (Hannah Arendt)

Education

Ph.D. in Philosophy, The New School for Social Research

B.A. in Modern Culture and Media & History of Art and Architecture, Brown University 

Courses Taught

• LLRN 102 Classical Origins of Western Culture
• LLRN 151 Classical Origins of Western Culture - First-Year Seminar
• PHIL 150 Roots of the Modern Age: Philosophy
• PHIL 152 Roots of the Modern Age: Philosophy - First-Year Seminar
• PHIL 201 Ethics
• PHIL 210 / RELS 200 Faith & Reason
• PHIL 228 Philosophy & Film
• PHIL 311 Augustine
• PHIL 316 Modern Philosophy
• PHIL 334 Existentialism
• PHIL 335 20th Century Philosophy
• PHIL 352 Philosophers on Sex, Love, and Friendship
• PHIL 399 Special Topics: Great Women Philosophers
• PHIL 410 Majors' Seminar: Hannah Arendt

Examples of Supervised Independent Studies, Internships, and Student Summer Research

• Using Art to Explore Arendt and Sartre on Time and Consciousness
• World Classics: Bhagavad Gītā, Early Buddhist Discourses, and Dao De Jing
• Rules for Directing the Mind: Stoicism and Early Modern Philosophy
• Mission-Based Response to Rape Culture
• Internship at advertising agency with paper written on conceptions of happiness
• Internship at women's transitional housing program with paper written on the ethics of social services

Publications

Edited Book

• Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022.

Chapters and Journal Articles

• Forthcoming: “The Body that Questions: Thinking Through Buber’s Philosophy of Embodiment with King and Fanon.” Women Write Buber, ed. Yemima Hadad, Cedric Cohen-Skalli, and Ronen Pinkas. Boston: Brill, 2026.
• “Martin Buber's Ethics of Perception.” A Companion to Martin Buber, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2025. 97–111.
• “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz on Resistance.” Teaching Women Philosophers: Ideas and Concepts from Women Philosophers’ Writings over 2000 Years, ed. Ruth Edith Hagengruber. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2024. 51–69.
• “Introduction: A Martin Buber Renaissance.” In Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form, ed. Sarah Scott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022. 1–9.
• “Monologue Disguised as Dialogue: Almodóvar’s Talk to Her and Buber on the ‘Lovers’ Talk.’” In Martin Buber: Creaturely Life and Social Form, ed. Sarah Scott. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022. 233–60.
• “A Lasallian Response to Rape Culture.” AXIS: Journal of Lasallian Higher Education 11, no. 1 (2020): 129–55. Co-authored with Jordan Pascoe.
• “Martin Buber’s Notion of Grace as a Defense of Religious Anarchism.” In Essays on Anarchism and Religion: Volume III, ed. Alexandre Christoyannopoulos and Mathew Adams. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2020. 189–222.
• “From Genius to Taste: Martin Buber’s Aestheticism.” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 25, no. 1 (2017): 110–30. Reprinted in Martin Buber: His Intellectual and Scholarly Legacy, ed. Sam Berrin Shonkoff. Boston: Brill, 2018. 151–70.
• “Knowing Otherness: Martin Buber’s Appropriation of Nicholas of Cusa.” International Philosophical Quarterly 55, no. 4 (2015): 399–416.
• “An Unending Sphere of Relation: Martin Buber’s Conception of Personhood.” Forum Philosophicum 19, no. 1 (2014): 5–25.
• Translation: “On the History of the Problem of Individuation: Nicholas of Cusa and Jakob Böhme, by Martin Buber.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 33, no. 2 (2012): 371–401.
• “Buber.” In The Continuum Companion to Existentialism, ed. Felicity Joseph, Jack Reynolds, and Ashley Woodward. London & New York: Continuum, 2011. 334–335.
• “Martin Buber.” In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu, June 2010.

• “The Anti-Vivisection Movement and the Creation of Animal Rights,” Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellowship online presentation for the Culture and Animals Foundation and North Carolina State University Libraries, May 21, 2025.
• “Building the Concepts of Women’s Rights and Animal Rights,” Appalachian State University, NC, February 27, 2025.
• “Frances Power Cobbe: Early Kantian Philosopher and Anti-Vivisection Activist,” Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics Summer School, University of Oxford, England, August 6, 2024.
• “Frances Power Cobbe,” Diversity Reading List in Philosophy, Online Workshop, March 27, 2024. For a video of the talk see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCdeOhd1sc8.
• “Martin Buber’s I and Thou at a 100,” Benedictine University, Lisle, IL, March 14, 2024.
• “Frances Power Cobbe: Treasures from the Archive,” Society of Fellows, The Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA, August 18, 2023.
• “The Body that Questions: Embodiment in Buber’s Moral Philosophy,” Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society and the Leo Baeck Institute, University of Haifa, Israel, July 18, 2023. For a video of the talk see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPSPuKO48Z.
• “Forgotten Philosopher Frances Power Cobbe on Women’s Rights and Animal Welfare,” Philosophy Colloquium, The New School for Social Research, New York, November 3, 2022.
• “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: The Right of Women to Philosophize, the Limitations of Reason, and the Use of Silence,” Libori Summer School: Teaching Women Philosophers, Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, Paderborn University, Germany, July 30, 2019.
• “The Lasallian Mission Responds to Rape Culture,” 6th International Symposium on Lasallian Research, Minneapolis, MN, September 25, 2017.
• “The Preconditions for and Limitations of Dialogue: Martin Buber on Torture, Lovemaking and Mental Illness,” Conference of the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, University of Glasgow, Scotland, September 10, 2016.
• Performance as Martin Buber for “Wish You Were Here” Series of Interviews with the Subjects of Andrew Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, The Jewish Museum, New York, October 22, 2015. For a video of the performance see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb8IPZBFSic.
• “Imagination and Moral Judgment: A Defense of Buber's ‘Aestheticism,’” Martin Buber: Philosopher of Dialogue, Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership & University of Chicago, October 18, 2015.
• Panelist (Philosophy of Dialogue, Applied Buber for the 21st Century) and Workshop Leader (Religious Dialogue), The Martin Buber Symposium, Temple Emanuel, Kensington, MD, May 31, 2015.
• “Imagining the Real: Almodóvar’s Talk to Her and Buber on Moral Relations,” Dialogue in the 21st Century: A Martin Buber Memorial Conference, Manhattan College, April 23, 2015. Conference Organizer.
• “Civil Disobedience in King and Kant,” Civil Disobedience as a Core Concept Panel, Association for Core Texts and Courses Twenty-First Annual Conference, Plymouth, Massachusetts, April 11, 2015. Panel Organizer.
• “Digital Memory and the Discovery of a New Human Right to be Forgotten,” Fourth Annual Conference of the Dialogues on Historical Justice and Memory Network, Lund University, Sweden, December 6, 2014.
• “Personhood in the Moral Philosophy of Martin Buber,” Canadian Jacques Maritain Association, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Brock University, Canada, May 25, 2014.
• “Nicholas of Cusa’s Ethics of Individuation and Martin Buber’s Dialogic Philosophy,” American Cusanus Society, 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 8, 2014.
• “Beyond Privacy: The New Human Rights of Memory,” Long Island Philosophical Society, Molloy College, April 26, 2014.
• “The Influence of Nicholas of Cusa on Martin Buber,” 11th Annual International Society for Neoplatonic Studies Conference, Cardiff University, Wales, June 14, 2013.
• “The Moral Significance of the Coincidence of Opposites in Nicholas of Cusa and Martin Buber,” Philosophy Workshop, The New School for Social Research, New York, December 16, 2010.

Professional Experience & Memberships

Instructor, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, 2008-11.
Courses Taught: Moral Issues in Business, Ethics and Society, Self and Society, Philosophic Issues in Literature, Philosophy of Beauty, Existentialism, Nineteenth-Century Philosophy

Teaching Fellow, The New School (Eugene Lang College and The New School for General Studies), 2007, 2010-11.
Courses Taught: Ethics, Modern Philosophy, Existentialism