Joan Braune, Ph.D.

Joan Braune does research in Social and Political Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion. More specifically, she works on Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Critical Hate Studies (countering/overcoming hate groups), and the intersections of religious experience and the socialist philosophical tradition, including the role of Jewish messianic hope in social movements and the philosophical implications of Marxist-Christian dialogue.

She has published two books on critical theorist Erich Fromm, Erich Fromm’s Revolutionary Hope: Towards a Critical Theory of the Future (Sense Publishers 2014) and, co-edited with Kieran Durkin, Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future (Bloomsbury 2020). She is currently completing a book on fascist movements and how to stop them, for Routledge Press’s Series on Fascism and the Far-Right. She is also co-editing forthcoming volume The Ethics of Researching the Far Right.

Braune is a frequent invited speaker to help community organizations, high school teachers, labor unions, faith communities and others, understand and respond to the threat posed by hate groups. She has served on the International Council of Experts for the Gonzaga Institute for Hate Studies and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Hate Studies.

She loves talking with students about philosophical questions, both timeless and timely, and she is the advisor to the Philosophy of Law Club, a weekly discussion group.