Asha L. Bhandary

Associate Professor
Biography

Dr. Bhandary is a political philosopher and feminist ethicist whose work develops a liberalism that is responsive to the need for care.  She is the author of many articles, the books Freedom to Care: Liberalism, Dependency Care, and Culture (Routledge, 2020), Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Liberal Political Theory, coedited with Amy R. Baehr  (Routledge, 2021), and the Digital Humanities Video Game Surviving the “Indifferents”.  In her monograph in progress, Being at Home: Living Autonomously in an Unjust World, she advances an account of personal autonomy for “grafted subjects”, or people who are assumed to be resources for others. In a public-facing book, Reproductive Justice for a Caring Society (under contract, Agenda Publishing), she collaborates with reproductive justice scholars Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz and Lina-Maria Murillo to bridge the gap between activist articulations for reproductive justice and care theory to provide a robust vision for a caring society in the twenty-first century. 

Dr. Bhandary is affiliated faculty in the Department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies.

Books

Freedom to Care: Liberalism, Dependency Care, and Culture, Routledge (2020).

Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Liberal Political Theory, co-edited with Amy R. Baehr, Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy series, Routledge (2021)

Digital humanities website

Surviving the Indifferents video game. Created by Asha Bhandary, Laura Brown, Timothy Sommers, and Jamie Ritzo. Iowa City: UI Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio, 2021. Derived from the monograph Freedom to Care, the game is designed to prompt discussions about the role of care in systems of social cooperation. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first philosophical video game developed by a team of philosophers.

Books in Progress

  • Being at Home: Living Autonomously in an Unjust World (projected completion 2025)
  • Reproductive Justice for a Caring Society, with Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz and Lina-Maria Murillo (Agenda Press, under contract)

Journal articles and book chapters

  • Bhandary, A. Commissioned. “Rawls, Care, and Justice.” In the Oxford Handbook on the Philosophy of John Rawls, eds. Christie Hartley, Blain Neufeld, and Lori Watson. 
  • Bhandary, A. In press. “Freedom to Care, for Women of Color”. In Bloomsbury Handbook of Care Ethics, ed. Matilda Carter. Bloomsbury Press.
  • Bhandary, A. In press. “Unsettling Social Expectations About Who Should Care: The “Surviving ‘the Indifferents’ Video Game”, In Quick Hits: Creativity in the Classroom, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, eds. Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick, Michael Marrone, and Deborah Elizabeth Whaley.
  • Bhandary, A. L. 2023. “A Reply to Clark Wolf, Elizabeth Edenberg, and Helga Varden.” Dialogue. 2023;62(2):261-277. doi:10.1017/S001221732200035X
  • Bhandary, A. 2023. “On the Diverse Priorities of Autonomous Women,” Symposium on Gina Schouten’s Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 107 (1), 264-270.
  • Bhandary, Asha Leena. 2022. Caring for whom? Racial Practices of care and liberal constructivism. philosophies 2022, 7(4), 78. 
  • Bhandary, A. 2022. Précis: Freedom to CareCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy25(6), 816–819. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2021.1922864
  • Bhandary, A. 2022. The theory of liberal dependency care: a reply to my critics. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy25(6), 843–857. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2021.1922865.
  • Bhandary, A. 2021. “Why Liberalism Needs Autonomy: Achieving a Mainstream Society without Intergroup Caregiving Exploitation.” Ethics, Politics & Society, 4(1), 230-241. 
  • Bhandary, A. 2021. “Being at Home”, White Racism, and Minority Health.” in Applying Nonideal Theory to Bioethics: Living and Dying in a Nonideal World, eds. Elizabeth Victor and Laura Guidry-Grimes, Springer, Ch. 10.
  • Bhandary, A. 2021. “Interpersonal Reciprocity: An Antiracist Feminist Virtue for Liberal Care Arrangements,” in Caring for Liberalism, eds. Baehr and Bhandary, New York: Routledge.
  • Bhandary, A. and Amy R. Baehr. 2021. “Introduction,” Caring for Liberalism, eds. Baehr and Bhandary, New York: Routledge.
  • Bhandary, A. 2020. Review of The Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice, edited by Serena Olsaretti (2018), Hypatia Reviews Online. https://www.hypatiareviews.org/reviews/content/462.
  • Bhandary, A. 2018. “Dependency Care before Pizza: A reply to Jan Narveson,” The Journal of Philosophical Research, published online August 3, 2018. 
  • Bhandary, Asha L. 2017. "The Arrow of Care Map: Abstract Care in Ideal Theory." Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 3, (4). Article 5. 
  • Bhandary, A. 2017. “Arranged Marriage: Could it Contribute to Justice?” The Journal of Political Philosophy, Early View published Sept. 29, 2017. 
  • Graber, A., Carter, S., Bhandary, A., Matthew Rizzo. 2017. “The Case for Enrolling High-Cost Patients in an ACO”. HealthCare Ethics Committee Forum: An Interprofessional Journal on Healthcare Institutions' Ethical and Legal Issues. 7). 
  • Bhandary, A. 2016. “Liberal Dependency Care,” Journal of Philosophical Research (Vol. 41), Online first published on June 28, 2016. DOI: 10.5840/jpr201662767.
  • Bhandary, A. 2016. “A Millian Concept of Care,” Social Theory and Practice (Vol. 42, no. 1): 155-182.
  • Graber, A., A. Bhandary and M. Rizzo. 2015. “Ethical practice under accountable care.” Healthcare Ethics Committee Forum 28:2 (June 2016): 115-128. First published 2015 online.
  • Bhandary, A. 2013. Review of Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment, by Serene J. Khader, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, Hypatia 28:2 (Spring 2013): 390-393.
  • Bhandary, A. 2010. “Dependency in Justice: Can Rawlsian Liberalism Accommodate Kittay’s Dependency Critique?” Hypatia 25:1 (Winter 2010): 140-156.

Professional history

  • 2019-current Associate Professor, University of Iowa
  • 2012-2019 Assistant Professor, University of Iowa
  • 2011-2012 Visiting Assistant Professor, Wesleyan University
  • 2010-2011 CLAS Dean’s Graduate Fellow, Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut
  • 2006-2010 Teaching Assistant, University of Connecticut
  • 2004-2006 Strategy Consultant, Wellspring Consulting (consulting for national non-profits)

Committees and service

  • Chair, American Philosophical Association Committee on Asian & Asian American Philosophers & Philosophies (2024-2027)
  • Associate Chair, American Philosophical Association Committee on Asian & Asian American Philosophers & Philosophies (2023-2024) 
  • Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Advisor
  • Care Forum Advisory Board
  • Lectures and Arrangements Committee
  • CLAS Undergraduate Educational Policy Curriculum Committee (2022-2025)
  • Chair, Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (2019-2021)
  • PIKSI-Rock Advisory Board, Managing Board, Chair (2015-2023)
  • Graduate Studies Committee (2016-2023)
  • Co-founder, Committee on the Status of Women of Color in the UI Council on the Status of Women (2019-2020)
  • UI Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio Steering Committee (2016-2017)

Iowa Research Online Academia CV

Research areas
  • Ethics and social/political
  • Feminist philosophy
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Phone
Education
PhD, University of Connecticut
Contact Information
Address

University of Iowa
258 English-Philosophy Building (EPB)
251 W. Iowa Avenue
Iowa City, IA 52242
United States