Anne F. Pomeroy (1958-2023)
Anne Fairchild Pomeroy, professor of philosophy at Stockton University, has died.
The following memorial notice was provided by Peter Amato (Drexel University).
Anne Fairchild Pomeroy (1958-2023)
It is with profound sadness that I share the news of the passing of Anne Fairchild Pomeroy, Professor of Philosophy at Stockton University.
A legendary teacher and mentor at Stockton, Anne developed and taught courses that expanded the breadth of her program and her students’ horizons dramatically, including Critical Social Theory, Modernity and its Critics, Process Philosophy, African American Philosophy, Feminist Theories, Philosophy of the Other, Power and Society, Existentialism and Film, among others. She created and co-taught a highly successful course on Marxism and Economics with a colleague from the Economics program.
Anne’s scholarship was focused on social justice, and she produced scores of articles, conference presentations and the acclaimed book, Marx and Whitehead: Process, Dialectics, and the Critique of Capitalism, over the course of a long and successful academic career.
Anne was also an accomplished classical flute player, and performed on multiple instruments and sang with the Stockton Faculty Band for twenty years.
She served as Stockton Federation of Teachers Union President from 2012-2017, guiding the local through some of its most challenging times and complex negotiations. She said the Union was not an organization, but “a way of being in the world that we have chosen with each other.”
When I met Anne in the early 1990’s she had just arrived at Fordham from Columbia, in search of philosophy and philosophers who weren’t just interpreting the world. The community of scholars and activists she gathered around her provided what she had been seeking in an academic career and in her life. For Anne, the quest to be part of and help create such a community as an educator, philosopher, and activist was the work of her life, a life well lived and with great success.
But in the background for most of her stellar work Anne was fighting a battle with breast cancer, its effects, and the effects of its treatment. She defeated breast cancer, but not long after developed the endometrial cancer that would be fatal.
In the days since her death there has been a tremendous outpouring of admiration and sadness from students, colleagues, friends, union staff and rank-and-file, band-members, and others who knew Anne sharing stories and expressing their love for her and feeling of loss. In her research, her music, her activism, and her life, Anne always sought to build others up through connection and compassion. She will be remembered for her kindness, her intelligence, and her passionate advocacy for justice. In lieu of flowers or cards, please consider donating to your local SPCA, shelter, or farm animal sanctuary.
Stockton University will hold a remembrance and celebration of Anne’s life on Monday, March 20 on campus that can also be seen via Zoom. Please contact me if you would like further details: [email protected].
An obituary for Professor Pomeroy has been published in The Argo.
I didn’t know her but she sounds lovely. Anyone who “in lieus of” to benefit all animals is the best kind of human, getting rarer by the minute. Requiescat in Pace 🙏 Professor. From a Fordham grad and vegan New Yorker. 😥✨
“We grew up together” was Anne’s reply to one who asked how we knew each other (in NYC in 2014 at an event at Lehman (?) College featuring as speaker Dr. Cornel West). It was the first time we’d seen each other in decades, and as it turned out the last time we’d see each other, but it was although no time had passed since we were in the choral and bell choirs and in Youth Council at the Brick Presbytarian church in NYC–where we indeed grew up together (though I lived in Harlem and she on the Upper East side). I was a blind girl in the play at Brick in which she starred as Helen Keller, and cried my eyes out when she, four years my senior, headed off to (Connecticut) college in ’76. I knew her mother and sister, attended her mother’s funeral, and, as I sit here with tears streaming down my face, am heartbroken to be sharing these words on a page addressing Anne’s passing. Rest in peace, dear, dear Anne. See you there. All my love, Joy Scott Ressler (nee Bramble)
I met Anne through volunteer work at Project MEOW, a west Philadelphia based cat rescue. Anne helped us out a lot with driving cats to vet appointments. She was very kind and generous with her time. I’m very sorry to hear of her passing.
Just when I’d hoped to reach out before it became too late, it was. I opened the Conn. College Alumni Mag this afternoon hoping for a note about what Anne was up to in the notes for the Class of 1980. We’d been friends there; she was an excellent flutist and I often accompanied her at the piano. I was stunned to find her name instead in the obituaries. Even more, it was endometrial cancer that took her life. I was reaching out before it became too late because I have endometrial cancer. Even so, I have wonderful memories of her, visiting her and her mother in New York, making music together, and enjoying her friendship.
I am fortunate enough to be able to translate Professor Anne’s works, and her profound thoughts captivate us. When I first read her book, I realized that she was an outstanding scholar with both infinite philosophical wisdom and a great concern for practical problems.