Noëlle McAfee

Noëlle McAfee is a professor of philosophy and affiliated faculty in women's, gender, and sexuality studies and psychoanalytic studies at Emory University, where she has taught since 2010. McAfee previously taught at several other universities, including serving as Allen-Berenson Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at Brandeis University.

McAfee has accepted a number of temporary academic appointments in addition to her permanent positions.

As of 2024, McAfee is the chair of Emory's philosophy department. On April 25, 2024, she was arrested as part of a crackdown on the anti-war in Gaza protest on the university's campus. As of Thursday, April 23, 2026, professor McAfee is suing Emory as a plaintiff because she alleges the university violated its own free expression policies by calling in police to break up a 2024 Gaza protest, leading to her wrongful arrest and prosecution, and she wants to hold the university accountable so such actions are not repeated.

Research areas McAfee's research primarily focuses on questions of democracy and democratic practice, the same questions that had her enter academic philosophy in the first place. McAfee's view is strongly informed by feminist theory; she believes that political life is rooted in participation in public activity, and that political agency is best understood not as a trait of rational individuals, but rather as something enacted collectively through interactions with others in civil society.