Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Karen Hanson began her post at the University of Minnesota on February 1, 2012.
Provost Hanson’s arrival at the University of Minnesota was a homecoming for her. She received her bachelor of arts, summa cum laude, in philosophy and mathematics here in 1970. She went on to earn both her master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from Harvard University in 1980.
Prior to returning to Minnesota, Hanson served as provost at the Bloomington campus of Indiana University and executive vice president of that university from July 2007 to January 2012.
Provost Hanson’s research interests are in the philosophy of mind, ethics and aesthetics, and American philosophy. She has published many articles and essays in these areas and is the author of the book The Self Imagined: Philosophical Reflections on the Social Character of Psyche and a co-editor of the book Romantic Revolutions: Criticism and Theory.
She has twice been elected to the executive committee of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA) and to the APA National Board of Officers. She served as chair of the APA board from 2004 to 2005. From 1993 to 1997, she served as the APA delegate to the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and as a member of the ACLS Executive Committee.
Hanson has been an associate editor of the Journal of Social Philosophy, a member of the editorial board of American Philosophical Quarterly and a trustee for the American Society for Aesthetics. Her current editorial board memberships include Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews and Cognitio, and she is an officer of the board of the John Dewey Foundation and a member of the advisory board of the Peirce Edition Project.