Johanna Luttrell, Ph.D.

Dr. Johanna Luttrell, PhD, is a visiting scholar of political philosophy at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, where she teaches classes in ethics, political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and general humanities. She received her PhD in Philosophy in 2013 from the University of Oregon, and she writes on issues of human rights, poverty, gender, and race. In the fall of 2016, after contracting a fever while traveling, she was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. She is grateful for the awesome and steady care she received from the physical and occupational therapists at TIRR-Memorial Hermann in Houston, who see and care for the whole person. Now almost fully recovered, she is back to teaching and writing, salsa dancing, experimenting in cooking, connecting to her body through yoga at the YMCA, connecting to God and community at the Upper Room church, doing social justice activism, drinking Texas-sized margaritas at happy hours with friends, and being close to her husband. In the process of writing this piece, Johanna found that the humanities push for a [sometimes uncomfortable] honesty of expression, where she couldn’t hide her vulnerability behind discipline-specific jargon. Thus, the process of writing a personal narrative was new, slightly scary, and very therapeutic. She believes the humanities give space to interpret the fullness of human experience, in all its complexity, allowing for the rich range of human emotion.