Professor Havis’ scholarly engagements utilize insights from Michel Foucault as a means of exploring issues in critical philosophy of race, critical disability studies, and phenomenology. Her publications include: “‘Now, How You Sound’: Considering a Different Philosophical Praxis” in Hypatia (2014); “Managing Individuals and Populations through Psychiatric Classification” in Serife Tekin and Robyn Bluhm, eds., The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Psychiatry (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019); “Blackness Beyond Witness: Black Vernacular Phenomena and Auditory Identity” in Philosophy and Social Criticism (2009); and “‘Seeing Black’ through Michel Foucault’s Eyes: ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws as An Anchorage Point for State-Sponsored Racism,” in Janine Jones and George Yancy, eds., Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2013). She is also a contributor to Jennifer Scuro, ed., Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

Her most recent book book, Creating a Black Vernacular Philosophy, was published in 2022 by Roman & Littlefield. She teaches to promote social justice, an interest that is especially evident in the Immersion East Side (Buffalo, NY) Ignatian Seminar that she has co-designed and co-directed for the last six years.