Wyschogrod, Edith

Edith Wyschogrod (June 8, 1930 – July 16, 2009) was an American philosopher. She received her B.A. from Hunter College in 1951 and her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1970. Wyschogrod joined Rice's Religious Studies Department in 1992, as the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought; she retired in 2002, and held the title of professor emeritus from 2003. Wyschogrod was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Fellow, 1999), a Guggenheim Fellow (1995-1996), and a fellow of the National Humanities Center (1981). She served one term as president of the American Academy of Religion (1993). She authored five influential books on ethics. Her work centered on ethical and philosophical themes such as justice and alterity; modern philosophy in light of technologically assisted mass death; and memory and forgetting. She was the wife of philosopher Michael Wyschogrod. She died July 16, 2009, in New York City at the age of 79.