David H. Kim

David Kim is a professor of philosophy and an affiliate of the programs in Asian Studies, Asian American Studies, and Critical Diversity Studies. He has served in a variety of professional organizations, including chairing the American Philosophical Association Committee on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies and co-founding the North American Korean Philosophy Association. 

David's work explores how our understanding of U.S. democracy is deepened through consideration of Asian American issues. His book is in progress on this theme, entitled American Xenos: Asian American Critique and the Bounds of Democracy. His research also focuses on decolonized philosophical dialogue, especially debates over the modern viability of Confucianized politics and the prospects for East-South (not just the more familiar East-West) dialogue. David also continues earlier work on the nature of emotion and its links to culture, morality, and politics.

• Moral Psychology, especially Emotion Theory
• Moral and Political Philosophy
• Asian/Comparative Philosophy, especially Confucianism
• Critical Race and Feminist Philosophy
• Decolonial/Postcolonial Thought

• Faculty Chair, Honors College
• Director, Global Humanities Track, Honors Program
• Chair, Critical Diversity Studies
• Chair, Philosophy Department
• Director, Asian American Studies Program

• Syracuse University, PhD in Philosophy
• Oberlin College, BA in Philosophy

• Ignatian Service Award, University of San Francisco
• Dean's Collective Achievement Award, Critical Diversity Studies, University of San Francisco
• Resident Fellowship, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University
• NEH Chair in the Humanities, University of San Francisco

• “Asian American Philosophy and Feminism,” in Kim Q. Hall and Ásta Sveinsdóttir, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2021), ch.12.
• “Racist Love” in Gail Weiss, Gayle Salamon, and Ann Murphy, eds., 50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology (Northwestern University Press, 2019), ch.43.
• “Alterity, Analectics, and the Challenge of Epistemic Decolonization,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol.57, Spindel Supplement, 2019, p.37-62.
• “Undoing Western Hegemony, Unpacking the Particulars: A Review of Bryan Van Norden’s Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto,” Philosophy East & West, vol.69, no.2, April 2019, p.619-627.
• "'Love is God and Work is his Prophet:’ Decolonial Extension and Gandhian Exploration in Du Bois’ Interwar Years” in Nick Brommel, ed., A Political Companion to W.E.B. Du Bois (U of Kentucky Press, 2018), ch.11.
• "The Invisible Asian," The New York Times, Oct. 2015.
• “José Mariátegui’s East-South Decolonial Experiment,” Comparative and Continental Philosophy, vol.7, no.2, 2015, p.157-179.
• “Xenophobia and Racism” (with Ronald Sundstrom), Critical Philosophy of Race, vol.2, no.1, 2014, p.20-45.
• “Shame and Self-Revision in Asian American Assimilation” in Emily Lee, ed., Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Race, and Embodiment (SUNY Press, 2014), ch.5.
• “The Unexamined Frontier: Dewey, Pragmatism, and America Enlarged,” in Eduardo Mendieta and Chad Kautzer, eds., Pragmatism, Community, and Empire (Indiana University Press, 2009), ch.2.
• “The Place of American Empire: Amerasian Territories and Late American Modernity,” Philosophy and Geography, vol.7, no.1, February 2004.
• Asian Pacific American Philosophy: Other Bodies and Other Borders in Philosophy of Race, Co-editor (with Craig K. Ihara), APA Newsletter on the Status of Asian/Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies, vol.2, no.2, Summer 2003.