bio

Jeanette “Joy” Harris is a Houston-based artist and artistic researcher focused on the multi-dimensionality of performance and its intersection with philosophy. 

Education EGS, Philosophy, and Art, PhD (expected 2025); the University of Edinburgh, History of Art, MscR (2016); Texas Woman’s University, Government, BA (1998)

Leadership Experimental Action Management Team

Honors Visiting scholar, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College; Arte Studio Ginestrelle Residency in Assisi (IT); Alexander Memorial Award for philosophic writing at New Mexico Texas Philosophical Society; and Houston Arts Alliance grant recipient.

Teaching Joy is currently an adjunct lecturer at the University of Houston McGovern College of Art. She regularly guest lectures at Texas Woman’s University and the University of North Texas.

Creative Practice Joy has been involved in creative practice for nearly thirty years, beginning with dance performance. Joy has since transitioned her creative practice to visual and performance art practices. She uses philosophical, poetic, and community-based tools to address social questions employing a spectrum of media ranging from photography, participation and video to object, installation, movement, and voice.

Joy’s works have been shown in Brindisi (IT), Chicago, Dallas, Helsinki, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Miami, the Netherlands, New Orleans, New York City, Pittsburgh, Portland, and San Francisco. Joy workshopped with the International Performance Association in conjunction with Venice International Performance Art Week (IT).

Joy’s performances have been published in Emergency Index Volumes 9 and 10.

Research & Writing Joy regularly lectures and presents academic papers on performance and philosophy, with a particular emphasis on Hannah Arendt and other 20th-century female philosophers like Judith Butler and Adriana Cavarero. She has presented at the

University of Cambridge’s Centre for Research on Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities; the University of Brighton’s Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics; the University of Edinburgh; New Mexico Texas Philosophical Society; the American Political Science Association; American Society of Aesthetics; and the Hannah Arendt Circle. She has published a variety of articles on philosophy and performance including Arendt Journal, Hyperallergic, Glasstire, Political Animal Magazine, and This is Tomorrow.

Curatorial practice As a curator, Joy moves between philosophic and creative discourses. She develops programs and conversations that are inherently interdisciplinary and aims to create shared, open, and accessible experiences whose output revitalizes our existential call, cultivates public discourse and bolsters political plurality. She has curated both online and live programs for organizations like Goethe Institute Pop-Up and Performance Art Houston. She has also collaborated with institutions like the University of Houston and Houston Community College, and developed independent projects.

Affiliations American Philosophical Association, American Society of Aesthetics, Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy