Alisa Bierria is an assistant professor in the Department of Gender Studies at UCLA. A Black feminist philosopher, Alisa’s writing and collaborative projects focus on racialized gender violence and critical acts of survival. She is developing a manuscript entitled, Missing in Action: Agency, Race, & Invention, which explores how intention is imagined and invented within structures of anti-black racism, carceral reasoning, and gendered violence. Highlighting insights from Black women’s agentic practices in conditions of violence, she proposes a pluralistic framework for agency that can account for intentional action within contexts of domination.
Alisa’s writing is published in Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Social Justice, and in numerous scholarly volumes, public anthologies, and op/eds. She is also a co-editor of the volumes, Abolition Feminisms: Organizing, Survival, and Transformative Practice (Haymarket Books, 2022) and Community Accountability: Emerging Movements to Transform Violence, a special issue of Social Justice (2010). An advocate and organizer within the feminist anti-violence movement for over 20 years, Alisa has co-founded and co-led several national organizations, including Survived & Punished, which advocates for the decriminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence.