Stella Gaon

Stella Gaon is a Full Professor in the Department of Political Science and Global Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University, with adjunct faculty status in Women and Gender Studies. She specializes in contemporary social and political theory, focusing on the deconstructive thought of Jacques Derrida, Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalysis, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, and continental political philosophy.

• PhD, University of Toronto
• MA and BA (Honours, with Distinction), Concordia University
• Grant Notley Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Alberta (2002-2003)

Her research interrogates how deconstruction can revitalize critical political theory, particularly through its engagement with Marxian political economy, radical political critique, and the ethical-political significance of undecidability. She explores the psychological mechanisms behind replication of domination, the role of deconstruction in feminist political theory, and the paradoxes of responsibility in democratic struggles.

Recent publications include analyses of The Lucid Vigil (Routledge, 2019), which examines deconstruction’s critical force, and investigations into spectral lies during the pandemic, the emancipatory potential of critical phenomenology, and the relationship between primal seduction and political domination. Her 15 most recent articles span topics like Habermasian discourse ethics, science education, and the philosophical implications of 9/11.

• 2020 Book Prize from Symposium: Canadian Journal for Continental Philosophy

Dr. Gaon has delivered over 50 papers internationally and serves on editorial boards for Derrida Today and Philosophy, Politics, and Critique. Her work bridges abstract theory with material political intervention, advocating for deconstruction as a radical fidelity to reason’s self-critique.