ACADEMIC
Anna (BA, Dip Appl. Ethics, Mag., MA, PG Cert HE, PhD) has completed a PhD in the philosophy of addiction, engaging in the existential and phenomenological approach of Kierkegaard and Levinas at St. Mary’s University, London, under the supervision of Dr. Hannah Marije Altorf and Dr. Pia Matthews. Anna has published in places such as the Journal of Medical Ethics and the New Bioethics Journal, and has lectured at Richmond, The American University in London and St. Mary's University, Canterbury Christ Church University and London School of Theology. She is currently a Lecturer at St. Mellitus College, East Midlands, Visiting Lecturer and Honorary Visiting Fellow at St. Mary’s University, Bakhita Centre for Research on Slavery, Exploitation and Abuse. She is also Director of The JAM Network UK, a creative anti-trafficking community, and involved in various independently affiliated research, activist and music projects.
Research Experience
Co-convener, Movement and Bodies: An Improvisation of Care Apr 2022 – Present
Maison de Sciences de l’Homme Université de Paris Nord
Co-leading colloquium series that will culminate in a manuscript. Speakers include: Maurice Hamington, Camille Buttigsrud and Bettina Bergo.
Honorary Visiting Lecturer, University of Kent Feb 2019 — 2021
Developing research concerning embodiment and trauma, in relation to politico-social relations and the imagination.
Visiting Research Fellow, St. Mary’s University Aug 2018 — Present
In conjunction with the Bakhita Centre for Reseach on Slavery, Exploitation and Abuse.
Publications and Papers
Books
Westin, A. (2022) Embodied Trauma and Healing: Critical Conversations on the Concept of Health and Rupture. London: Routledge.
Available through Routledge Academic and Amazon.
Westin, A. (2020) An Existential Phenomenology of Addiction. London: Bloomsbury Press.
Available through Bloomsbury Press and Amazon.
Chapters
Westin, A. (2023) 'A Plural Transcendence: When Film Does Phenomenology'. In Thinking Film. Eds. Richard Kearney and Murray Littlejohn. New York City: Bloomsbury Press.
Westin, A. (2023). 'Becoming Through Rupture: Kierkegaardian Reflection on Contemporary Trauma Discourse'. In Kierkegaard and Bioethics. Ed. Johann-Christian Poder. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Westin, A. (2022). 'Imagining Otherwise: Creative Arts as a Tool for Recovery’. In Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking: The Victim Journey. Eds. Runa Lazzarino and Carole Murphy. Bristol University Press.
Westin, A. (2022). 'Anorexie et Phénoménologie Levinassienne.' In Pesanteur et Portance: Une Éthique de la Gravité. Eds. Christine LeRoy et Chiara Palermo. Paris: Hermann Press.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Khalili, H. & Westin, A. 2010. 'Current trends in private psychology practice in Newfoundland and Labrador'. Psychopsis. Presented at the American Psychology Association in Washington D.C., 2010.
Westin, A. 2018. 'Book Review: Hans Fink and Robert Stern (eds.) What is Ethically Demanded? K. E. Løgstrup's Philosophy of Moral Life'. In Studies in Christian Ethics. 31 (3), pgs. 329-332.
Westin, A. 2018. 'Despite Circumstance: The Principles of Medical Ethics and the Role of Hope'. In New Bioethics Journal. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/20502877.2018.1487703
Westin, A. 2018. 'Can Evil Create? Levinas in Conversation with Tikkun Olam and Kierkegaard'. In Scandinavian Jewish Studies. 29(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.68861
Westin, A. 2016. ’The Potentiality of A Healthy Self: Evaluating Progressively Empowered Internalisation and Diagnosis through the Lens of Existential Epistemology’. In The New Bioethics Journal. SAGE.
Westin, A. 2014. 'Are Evolving Human Rights Harmless? An Examination of English Legislation, Prostitution and its Effects on Relatedness'. In The New Bioethics Journal. SAGE.
Westin, A. 2013. 'The Harms of Prostitution: Critiquing Moen's Argument of No-Harm'. In Journal of Medical Ethics. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ medethics-2011-100367.
Whitaker, R., Westin. A & Pitt, D., 2013. ‘Creating a Balanced Framework of Rights and Responsibilities in HIV’. Tuke Institute NHS Consultation Document. Published Online First: 1 August 2013. Available at: http://www.tukeinstitute.org/pubs/1308CD1.pdf
Papers Given
Westin, A. June 2023. ‘The Experience of Other, the Experience of Self: Ricœur, Jung and the Mystical Subject.’ Soi-même Comme un Autre. Ateliers d’été du Fonds Ricoeur, Paris.
Westin, A. June 2023. ‘The Musical Image of Trauma: Revelation, Transcendence and the Political’. Digital Mediation and Working Through in Times of Denial, Disavowal and Splitting. Zoom International Workshop. Bar Ilan University; St. Mary’s University.
Westin, A. May 2023. Plenary Address: ‘Ethics as Re-Perception: Art and the Task of Living’. Annual Theology and Divinity Postgraduate Conference. Aberdeen University.
Westin, A. Feb 2023. ‘The Body’s Mystical Turn’. Who Comes After the Subject? The Reevaluation of Subjectivity in Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Westin, A. Sept 2022. Plenary Panelist. ‘Embodied Trauma and Healing’. Crisis in Contemporary Theory of Religion and the Humanities. Student Conference. University of Denver and Universitat Wien.
Westin, A. May 2022. ‘Creative Arts as a Tool for Traumatic Recovery’. Movement and Bodies: An Improvisation of Care colloquium. MSH Paris Nord.
Westin, A. May 2022. ‘A Community of Isolation: Trauma, Addiction and Intersubjectivity’. Guest Lecture. Goucher College, USA.
Westin, A. Jun 2021. ‘Refiguring the Unsayable. Phenomenological Implications of The Rule of Metaphor to Contemporary Trauma Narratives’. Atelier Fonds Ricoeur, Institut Protestant de Théologie, Paris.
Westin, A. Mar 2021. 'A Body Traumatized: Toward a Phenomenology of Healing'. Phenoix Research Seminar. Mt. Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada.
Westin, A. Oct 2020 (via zoom) ‘Diagnosis and Disorder through Phenomenology’. French Research Seminar, Durham University.
Westin, A. Oct 2020 (via zoom) ‘Becoming through Rupture: Kierkegaardian Reflection in Contemporary Trauma Discourse’. International Workshop: Biomedical Ethics meets Kierkegaard. Universität Rostock, Germany.
Westin, A. Jun 2020. (via zoom) ‘Revelational Rupture: Reading Trauma in the Phenomenology of Levinas’.
Current Research in Phenomenology and Mental Health. Phenomenology and Mental Health Network, Oxford & Philosophy of Mental Health Unit, Poznan University of Medical Sciences.
Westin, A. Feb 2020. ‘Addict or Addicted? Existential Phenomenology in Conversation with Kierkegaard and Levinas’. University of Winchester.
Westin, A. Oct 2019. ‘Embodied Trauma: Ricoeur on Relationality, Rupture and Lament’. Paper presented at Work-in-Progress seminar, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Kent.
Westin, A. Sep 2019. ‘Kierkegaard’s Possibility in an Age of Environmental Anxiety’. Paper presented at Living in Uncertainty: Kierkegaard and Possibility. Senate House, University of London.
Westin, A. Jun 2019. ‘Embodied Trauma: Situating the Rupture in Ricoeur and Freud’. Paper presented at Ricoeur Reading Freud: Atelier Fonds Ricoeur, Institut Protestant de Théologie, Paris.
Westin, A. Jan 2019. ‘Situating Trauma: Lévinas and Ricoeur in Conversation with Contemporary Medicine’. Paper given at Centre for Philosophy of Religion, University of Roehampton, London.
Westin, A. Sep 2018. ‘Hopeful Resistance: Ethical Reconstructions of Justice Narratives through the Arts’. Paper given at CIAP 2018: Rethinking Resistance: The Ethics of Defiance, Opposition, and Struggle in an Age of Disenchantment, Canterbury Christ Church University.
Westin, A. Sep 2018. ‘Who am I? Language and Definition in Mental Illness’. Paper presented at Uniting Two Perspectives on Mental Illness: Philosophy and Linguistics. University of Essex.
Westin, A. Jun 2018. ‘A Phenomenology of Mental Illness’. Paper presented at La Symbolique du Mal: Atelier Fonds Ricoeur, Institut Protestant de Théologie, Paris.
Westin, A. Apr 2018. ‘Being Human, Being Love[d]’. Paper presented at London School of Theology Research Conference.
Westin, A. Jan 2018. ‘The Body in Pain: The Role of Poetic Revelation in Anorexia Nervosa’. Paper presented at Transfiguring Pain Poetically; Exploring the Liberating Potential of Artistic Creation, University of Copenhagen.
Westin, A. May 2017. 'Self and the Other: Addiction Discourses and the Problem of Perfection'. Paper presented at St. Mary's University Undergraduate and Postgraduate Conference ('Broadening the Discourse').
Westin, A. October 2016. ’Can Demons Create? Levinas’ Useless Suffering in Conversation with Tikkun Olam and Kierkegaard’. Paper to be presented at The Problem of Evil and Images of [In]Humanity, University of Copenhagen.
Westin, A. June 2016. ‘Dethroning the Anxious Ego: Western Christianity’s Search for Joyfully Embodied Living’. Paper presented at Christianity in Comparison conference, Cambridge University.
Westin, A. March 2015. 'Beauty and Anxious Embodiment'. Paper presented at Beauty Demands Workshop, Warwick University.
Westin, A. April 2014. ‘Economics and the Academia’. Paper presented at Society for the Study of Christian Ethics, New College, Edinburgh University.
Westin, A. May 2010. ’A House Divided: Understanding the Kierkegaardian Self and the Anorexic Patient’. Paper presented at the Memorial University Philosophy Society Lecture Series.
Reviews and Academic Blogs
Westin, A. 2017. ‘Review: Handbook of Children’s Rights’. Metapsychology Online. Available at: http://metapsychology. mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=7963&cn=135
Westin, A. 2017. 'Review: The Psychology of Good and Evil'. Metapsychology Online. Available at: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=7817&cn=396
Westin, A. 2017. 'Review — Illness or Deviance? Drug Courts, Drug Treatment, and the Ambiguity of Addiction'. Metapsychology Online. Available at: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=7782&cn=324
Westin, A. 2016. 'Review: Addictions— A Social Psychological Perspective'. Metapsychology Online. Available at: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php? type=book&id=7722&cn=324.
Westin, A. 2016. 'Selfies, Faces and the Like-able Face from which We Live'. Beauty Demands Project Blog. Available at: http://beautydemands.blogspot.ca/2016/08/selfies-ethics-and-likeable-face-from.html.
Westin, A. 2016. 'Review: Marc Lewis' The Biology of Desire'. Metapsychology Online. Available at: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type =book&id=7630&cn=324.
Westin, A. 2016. 'Cosmetic Surgery, Embodied Anxiety and the Tension of Self'. Beauty Demands Project Blog. Available at: http://beautydemands.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/ cosmetic-surgery -embodied-anxietyand.html.
Westin, A. 2014. ‘Bioethics: The Basics. Review’. The New Bioethics. November 2014. Available at: http://www.bioethics.ac.uk/news/Bioethics-The-Basics.
Education
2013-2017 St. Mary's University, London PhD in Philosophy and Ethics
Addict or Addicted? Levinas and Kierkegaard's Hopeful Existential Phenomenology of Addiction
2014-2015 St. Mary's University, London PGCert in Higher Education
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
2011-2013 St. Mary's University, London MA in Bioethics and Medical Law
Concentration in Human Rights Theory and Virtue Ethics.
2010-2011 Gothenburg University, Sweden Mag. in Practical Philosophy
Concentration in Political Philosophy and Human Rights.
2009-2010 Memorial University, Canada Dipl. of Applied Ethics
Concentration in Mental Health Ethics
2006-2010 Memorial University, Canada Bachelors of Arts
Major in Philosophy, Minor in Psychology
Non-university courses
UN B-Course in Human Rights, Gothenburg, Sweden (February 2011)
UN B-Course in Peace, Security and Disarmament, Stockholm, Sweden (April 2011)
Classical Pilates Mat Instructor Accreditation / Comprehensive Classical Pilates Instructor (student-in-training)
Introduction to Somatic Experiencing Training / Somatic Experiencing Beginner 1 & 2
Academia.edu