Karen Valihora

Karen Valihora is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at York University, serving as Graduate Program Director within the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. Her research focuses on the history of ideas about community, civil society, aesthetics, and moral philosophy in eighteenth-century literature and philosophy. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Yale University, along with advanced degrees from McGill University and the Sorbonne.

Dr. Valihora's teaching spans courses on small-town narratives, Romantic poetry, Milton, and the aesthetics of community. Her notable publication Austen’s Oughts: Judgment after Locke and Shaftesbury (2010) examines shared ethical judgment in Enlightenment literature. She actively contributes to academic discourse through roles organizing conferences like the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies panels and leading Liberty Fund colloquia on Adam Smith and Jane Austen.

• Professional Leadership:
  • Panel Organizer, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2022)
  • Director, Liberty Fund Colloquium on Smith/Austen (2018)
  • Director, Shaftesbury/Mandeville Liberty Fund (2015)
• Community Contributions: Publisher & Managing Editor of the Picton Gazette newspaper

Her research interests bridge literature, philosophy, and political thought, with recent work addressing topics like pastoral narratives, eighteenth-century ethics, and interdisciplinary aesthetics. Awards and grants are not explicitly listed in the provided text.