Dr. Lisa Guenther is the Queen’s National Scholar in Political Philosophy and Critical Prison Studies, jointly appointed in the Department of Philosophy and the Cultural Studies Program.

Dr. Guenther’s research focuses on the intersection of phenomenology, political philosophy, and critical prison studies, with further specializations in feminism and philosophy of race. She is a public philosopher, publishing her work both in academic journals and in major media outlets including The New York Times and CBC’s “Ideas”. She is the author of the renowned 2013 book Solitary Confinement: Social Death and its Afterlives and is currently working on a book about incarceration, reproductive politics, and settler colonialism in Canada, Australia, and the United States.

In this episode, Dr. Guenther discusses the medical effectiveness of the death penalty in the United States, the only Western country to practice capital punishment in the twenty-first century.

Please visit the Department of Philosophy for more information about Dr. Guenther's research.