University Writing Program > Neşe Devenot
Neşe Devenot

Neşe Devenot (she/they)

Senior Lecturer

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Dr. Neşe Devenot (they/them) joined the University Writing Program in 2023. Their courses have explored interdisciplinary topics including drugs in society, bioethics, comparative literature, and transdisciplinary collaboration. They received their BA in Philosophy and Literature from Bard College and their MA and PhD in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania, where they received the Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching. 

Before joining JHU, Dr. Devenot completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Cincinnati’s Institute for Research in Sensing, Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Bioethics, and the University of Puget Sound’s Humanities Program. They are currently working on a book project titled Chemical Poetics: The Literary History of Psychedelic Science, which was supported by the Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellowship from Bard College. Their background in public humanities has included writing and editing for Psymposia, a psychedelic harm reduction nonprofit organization where they are a board member. Dr. Devenot's psychedelic bioethics research has included a collaboration with JHU’s Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research. Their psychedelic ethics research has appeared in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, JAMA Psychiatry, Journal of Psychedelic Studies, Frontiers in Psychology, and Anthropology of Consciousness. They received the European Romantic Review Article Prize in 2020 and the inaugural award for Best Humanities Publication in Psychedelic Studies from Breaking Convention in 2016. 

As a psychedelic expert, Dr. Devenot has been featured on the Dr. Phil show and quoted in NPR, The Washington Post, The New York Times, STAT, Vox, Business Insider, The Austin Chronicle, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, The Hill, Wired Magazine, Rolling Stone, Vice News, Haaretz, and Quartz, among other international outlets.