PhD Student
sara [dot] anne [dot] saba [at] emory [dot] edu
Education
M.A. Philosophy, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2015
B.A. Philosophy and Literature, (Summa Cum Laude), University of New Mexico, 2012
Current Research Interests
Areas of Specialty: Philosophical Psychology, Philosophy of Psychiatry, Medical Humanities
Areas of Competence: Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) Philosophy, Decolonial Psychology, Bioethics, Islamic Philosophy
Dissertation Title
“Trauma and Aporetic Injury: A Method for Multi-Perspectival Triage”
Abstract:
In my dissertation, I evaluate the limits of addressing trauma through medical, psychological, philosophical, and political discourses. I situate these limits historically in relation to the hegemony of Western trauma theory, with particular emphasis on how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an insufficient diagnostic category for the personal, political, and colonial traumas experienced by people in the MENA region. I pursue this assessment through a comparative analysis of Ancient Greek and Medieval Islamic medical texts on trauma, Western, Arab, and decolonial clinical histories regarding the treatment of psychosomatic pathology, as well as theories of embodiment and self-relation from Western and Middle Eastern/Islamic philosophical traditions. By reading these varied etiologies of trauma together, I show that trauma is an aporetic experience with no universal prognosis. I propose a multi-perspectival method for addressing trauma, grounded in two concerns: its inescapably aporetic nature and the necessity of providing those living with trauma contextually tangible ways to navigate their suffering.
Teaching Experience
South University, Savannah, GA
2023 Introduction to Philosophy, (Online)
2023 Introduction to Philosophy, (Online)
2024 Introduction to Philosophy
Emory University, Atlanta, GA
2022 Introduction to Bioethics
2021 Introduction to Bioethics, (Online)
2020 Introduction to Healthcare Ethics
2020 Philosophy of Mental Health and Illness, (with support from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Public Scholar Teaching Fellowship)
2020 Introduction to Bioethics
2018 Introduction to Ethics
2017 Contemporary Moral Issues
Co-Teaching:
2017 Philosophy of Race and Film (with Dr. George Yancy)
2016 Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (with Dr. Susan Bredlau)
Conference Presentations:
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2024 “Algerian Women’s Role in Decolonization: Politicized Veiling and Armed Resistance,” University of West Georgia Philosophical Society
2022 “Trauma Informed Pedagogy: Workshop for Course Syllabi, Instructor Feedback, and Class Discussions,” American Philosophical Association Central Division (APA), Chicago, IL
Conference Presentations:
2017 “Ascending Bone and Descending Flesh: Georgia O’Keeffe and Francis Bacon on the Human Body and the Animal Spirit,” Collegium Phaenomenologicum Participants Conference, Italy
2017 “Temporal Exile and the Body in a Crypt: Kristeva on the Ethics of Loneliness,” Emory University
Service:
- Climate and Culture Liaison, Emory Department of Philosophy, (2017)
- Conference Co-Organizer, Emory Philosophy Speaker Series, (2016-2017)
- Secretary, Graduate Philosophy Society at Emory, (2016-2017)
- Primary Conference Organizer, 8th Annual Stony Brook University Philosophy and the Arts Conference “Outsides” (2015)
- Panel Respondent, 7th Annual Stony Brook University Philosophy and the Arts Conference “Facades” (2014)
Departmental Talks:
- “Rational Knowledge and Irrational Action: Akrasia and Psychic Trauma” Emory University (2019)
- “PTSD and the Limits of Knowing Oneself” Emory University (2018)
Awards:
- Melon Interventions Project Public Scholarship Fellow (2020-2021)
- Emory Graduate Diversity Fellowship, (2015-2020)
- Ronald E. McNair/Research Opportunity Scholar, University of New Mexico, (2011-2012)