Jessica Ruffin

Jessica Ruffin is an Assistant Professor at MIT specializing in critical philosophy, media history, and aesthetics. Her research examines ethics as a problem of environmental and historical relation, with particular focus on connections between Schopenhauer/Nietzsche's aesthetics and Black/Indigenous thought. She is currently developing 'Becoming Amphibious: the question of ethics in white supremacist worlding,' an auto-philosophical genealogy weaving German aesthetics, Black studies, and media philosophy.

She holds a PhD in Film and Media from UC Berkeley (2021) with a Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory, an MA in German Literature (UC Berkeley, 2018), and an MA in Humanities (University of Chicago, 2008). Prior to MIT, she was a fellow with the Michigan Society of Fellows and Assistant Professor at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Dr. Ruffin has presented her research internationally, including at Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, and Duke University. Her courses include 'Introduction to Film Studies,' 'Cinema/Provocateur: Lars von Trier,' and 'Aesthetics, Ethics, and White Supremacy.'