Clara Fischer works in the areas of social and political theory, feminist theory, and gender politics. She is a Vice Chancellor Illuminate Fellow at the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. Previously, she worked as an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Centre for Gender, Feminisms, and Sexualities (and Co-director of the Dewey Studies Research Centre) at University College Dublin, and as a Newton International Fellow at the Gender Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Dr. Fischer is the author of Gendered Readings of Change: A Feminist-Pragmatist Approach (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014), and co-editor of Irish Feminisms: Past, Present and Future (Arlen House/Syracuse University Press, 2015), New Feminist Perspectives on Embodiment (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), and Philosophical Perspectives on Contemporary Ireland (Routledge, 2020). She has published widely in the leading journals in her area, including in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, and Feminist Review. She is the guest editor of a special issue of Hypatia on "Gender and the Politics of Shame" (2018) and co-editor of a special issue of Contemporary Pragmatism on "John Dewey and Critical Philosophies for Critical Political Times" (2019). As a Newton International Fellow of the British Academy, and as PI on EU Horizon2020 project, GENDEMOTION: The Gendered Politics of Emotion in Austerity Ireland, she has developed significant expertise in a number of research areas, including in the politics of shame in an Irish context. In 2024, she co-founded and currently co-ordinates (together with Jonathan Heaney) the QUB research network, ÆRN: Affect & Emotion Research Network.

Dr. Fischer is involved in civil society research and advocacy, having worked in the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) and NGO sector. She is a founder of the Equality Budgeting Campaign, a former director of the Irish Feminist Network and communications officer of the Society for Women in Philosophy Ireland. In February 2017, she formed part of the Irish civil society delegation to Geneva, representing the Equality Budgeting Campaign at the UN CEDAW hearings (Ireland's examination of women's human rights).

She has received grants and fellowships from academic and third sector bodies, including from the British Academy, the European Commission, the Society for Applied Philosophy, and the Community Foundation of Ireland. She is an editorial board member of Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, and has served as Book Review Co-Editor of Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. In 2017, she was awarded the Lydia M. Child and Ida B. Wells Award for Public Philosophy (on Issues of Gender, Sexual Orientation, or Feminism) by the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP). 

Research interests: - Feminist-pragmatism - Theories of emotion/affect - Embodiment and shame - Institutionalisation and containment - Gender and austerity - Women and the politics of crisis - Irish feminisms - Gender and nationalism - Reproduction and sexuality in Ireland