Education & Publications
Dual-title Ph.D. in Philosophy and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Pennsylvania State University, 2025.
B.A., History, Utah Valley University, 2016.
B.A., Philosophy, Utah Valley University, 2016.
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
K. McLain (2025). “Which Women? Privilege and Reproduction in Phintys’s “On Sōphrosynē” Epochè 30 (1): 111-126.
K. McLain, A. Schultz (2022). “Socratic Death Rattles: Pythagorean Hearing and Listening in Plato’s Phaedo.” Hearing, Sound, and the Auditory in Ancient Greece. Ed. Jill Gordon. Indiana University Press: 311-333.
K. McLain, J. Kelley, L. Cruz (2025). “Between Worlds: Navigating the Liminal Space of Graduate Students as Partners in Educational Development.” New Directions in Teaching and Learning Scholarship, Forthcoming.
B. Sottile, L. Cruz, K. McLain (2022). “Through the Looking Glass: STEM Students’ Changing Relationships with Time Across the COVID-19 Pandemic.” American Society for Engineering Education Middle Atlantic Section Conference Proceedings.
B. Sottile, L. Cruz, Y. Burleson, K. McLain (2021). “It’s About Time: An Analysis of Student Activities Under Remote Learning,” American Society for Engineering Education Conference & Exposition Proceedings.
IN PREPARATION
Center for Canon Expansion and Change 2026, Expanding the Canon in Ancient Philosophy Materials and Guides.
“The Midwife Paradox: A Problem of Confusing Barrenness” Takes the classical problem of “the Midwife Paradox” in Plato’s Theaetetus and resolves it through attention to unique Greek words for barrenness. Draft Available. Will soon be under review.
Book Project: Oikos Theories of the State: Power, Reproduction, and Privilege from the Perspective of the Household. This book analyzes extant ancient Graeco-Roman women’s work in relation to state-based concerns such as social and biological reproduction, power, and privilege. Extended Abstract Available.
Book Project: The Eros of Generation: A Love-Based Ethic of Communal Care. In this work I develop an approach to social and biological reproduction grounded in a robust ethic of love as connection and interdependence. I draw on care ethics, relational ethics, and reproductive justice theory. This project is in the initial phases. Extended Abstract Available.
DISSERTATION
"Metaphors of Gestation: Socratic Midwifery, Reproductive Justice, and Philosophical Technē"
Co-Directors: Nancy Tuana (Penn State) and Sara Brill (Fairfield University)
Members: Sarah Clark Miller, Kris Sealey, Hil Malatino