Maria Gallego-Ortiz
Maria Gallego-Ortiz
Contact
Stokes Hall North 230G
Email: maria.gallego.2@bc.edu
Education
- B.A. Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia
- M.Litt., University of St. Andrews
- M.A. Boston College
Courses
Philosophy of the Person I
Philosophy of the Person II
Research Interests
Ethics
Philosophy of Imagination
Continental Philosophy
Office Hours
T/TH 1:00 - 2:45 p.m.
Department
Biography
Maria Gallego-Ortiz is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at Boston College. She holds an MA in Philosophy from Boston College, an MLitt in Philosophy from the University of St Andrews, and a BA in Philosophy from Universidad de La Sabana. Her research investigates the significant role of imagination in moral life, focusing on how individuals perceive, respond to, and ethically shape their world through deliberate acts of attention, narrative construction, and embodied experience. She finds particular value in the works of Iris Murdoch and Paul Ricœur, whose writings provide essential insights into developing a moral vision that extends beyond standard rule-following and rational deliberation. Maria’s wider academic interests include feminist philosophy, phenomenology, and the philosophy of religion. She is particularly interested in how experiences of subjectivity, desire, and hospitality inform ethical life. Drawing on philosophical texts, literature, and sacred poetry, her work examines how individuals come to see themselves and others more truthfully, and how such vision might support more just and compassionate ways of living.
PUBLICATIONS
Gallego-Ortiz, M. 2025. The experience of pregnancy as an embodied metaphor of hospitality. Continental Philosophy Review 58, 403–423. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-025-09691-5
Gallego-Ortiz, Maria. 2024. Revising Gerty MacDowell’s Identity and Agency: An Intersectional Feminist Disability Perspective. Humanities 13, no. 6: 147. https://doi.org/10.3390/h13060147
Girado‐Sierra, Jesús David; Gallego‐Ortiz, Maria Camila; and Thoene, Ulf. 2024. Aristotelian versus Platonic and Machiavellian interpretations of phronesis: A critical reflection on leadership and management education. International Social Science Journal 74, no. 254: 1577-1592. https://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12527
Girado‐Sierra, Jesús David; and Gallego‐Ortiz, Maria Camila. 2021. Antropotécnica: dominar la fortuna, compensar la deficiencia y mejorar la vida. Humanismo y transhumanismo: reflexiones desde las ciencias humanas y sociales. Editores Gustavo A. Muñoz Marín y Jesús David Cifuentes Yarce, Editorial Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, pp. 234-246.
Presentations
“Imagination and Moral Vision in Iris Murdoch’s Moral Philosophy” - Will be presented at the 122nd meeting of the APA Eastern Division. Baltimore, Maryland (January 2026)
“Reshaping Subjectivity through Women’s Desire A Kristevan Interpretation of Song of Songs” - Will be presented at the 2025 Psychology and the Other Conference Boston College (September 2025)
“Ethics as Poetics. Exploring Imagination in Ethical Life through Gaston Bachelard” Presented at the 54th Annual North Texas Philosophical Association Conference The University of Texas at Dallas (March 2024)
“Iris Murdoch: Life and Work” PhilosopHERS Workshop Series Philosophy Department, Boston College (November 2023)
“Imagination in Moral Action: A Murdochian-Ricœurian Account” Presented at the 17th Annual Society for Ricœur Studies Conference Institute for Christian Studies (October 2023)
“PULSE: A Service-Learning Course to Promote Character Development in College Students” With Jeronimo Ayesta (Boston College Ph.D. Student) Presented at the European Character and Virtue Association Conference Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (June 2023)
“The Hospitality of the Pregnant Woman as a Possibility for Radical Hospitality” Presented at the Fides Quaerens Conference: Hospitality and the Impossible Villanova University (April 2023)
“Against Radical Hospitality: A Feminist Reading” Presented at the Southwest Seminar in Continental Philosophy Texas State University (June 2022)
“Making Sense of Akrasia in Plato’s Protagoras” Presented at the Southeastern Graduate Philosophy Conference University of Florida (April 2022)
“Iris Murdoch, Imagination and the Good Life” Presented at the New Voices Conference History of Women Philosophers and Scientists Paderborn University, Germany (February 2022)
Awards and Recognitions
AAUW International Fellowship (2025-2026) – AAUW International Fellows are selected for their academic achievement, scholarly promise and demonstrated commitment to women and girls. Thousands of AAUW International Fellows have returned to their home countries to become leaders in government, academia, community activism, business and science..
The Clough Center for the Study of the Constitutional Democracy Doctoral Fellowship (2025-2026)
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Convener, Boston Phenomenology Circle (2023-Present)
MA Council Member (2021-2023)
MA Representative to the GSA (2021-2023)
Professional Organizations
Iris Murdoch Society
Society for Ricœur Studies
American Philosophical Association