Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy in dialogue.

"We translate what American women write, they never translate our texts," wrote Helene Cixous almost two decades ago. Her complaint about the unavailability of French feminist writing in English has long since been rectified, but the situation for feminist writing by German-speaking philosophers remains today what it was then. This pioneering collection takes a giant step forward to overcoming this handicap, revealing the full richness and variety of feminist critique ongoing in this linguistic community. The essays offer (...) fresh readings of thinkers from the Enlightenment to the present, including those often discussed by feminists everywhere—such as Freud, Habermas, Hegel, Kant, and Rousseau—as well as some less subjected to feminist critique such as Benjamin and Weininger. In their Introduction the editors provide the context for understanding both how these essays fit into the larger picture of developing feminist theory and what makes their contribution in some ways distinctive. (shrink)

The argument of this dissertation is that despite the intellectual gendered burden of the problem of disembodiment I define, it can be employed from within the limitations of a gendered account in feminist philosophy of the continental-realist type. I formulate the problem of disembodiment as rooted in the notion of the boundless (apeiron) associated with femininity. Both boundlessness and disembodiment are subject to radicalization in Plato (chōra) and Plotinus (to hen). Read as a dyad, they culminate in (...) a tendency towards gendered disembodiment, mediated by Plato’s soul-body dualism. The dissertation seeks to compare the gendered dimension of disembodiment in the work of Plato and Plotinus and that of the non- philosophers François Laruelle and Katerina Kolozova. “Part I. The Problem of Boundlessness: Radicalizing Disembodiment” is divided in three chapters, which present an intellectual history of the problem of boundlessness as femininity. I survey the problem of boundlessness as drafting relations between elements and principles and femininity in Greek mythology (Chapter 1), Plato’s cosmology (Chapter 2), and Plotinus’ metaphysics (Chapter 3). I argue that the relation between death and the female was ambivalent by the time of the Anaximandrean apeiron and that it became a subject of radicalization via Plato’s chōra and Plotinus’ One, mediated by the notion of the Indefinite Dyad and the doctrine of divided matter. The problem of boundlessness was subject to conceptual radicalization that led to hierarchical metaphysics and deepened the division between body and soul via the association of femininity, reproductivity and matter. “Part II. The Problem of Disembodiment: Revising Boundlessness” is divided in two chapters focusing on the contemporary relevance and importance of the problem of disembodiment as a way of revising boundlessness. I present and explain the legacy of the Platonic chōra and the Plotinian One and what they as a dyad entail for contemporary continental philosophy. I offer (Chapter 4) a trajectory for a continental feminist philosophy interpretation of disembodiment by combining continental feminist philosophy, non- philosophy and new realism. With the aid of Laruelle’s non-philosophy, I explain how and why chōra and the One can be used for/from continental feminist philosophy, followed by a presentation of how chōra and the One are revised in continental philosophy from non- philosophical and new realist perspectives. I then develop (Chapter 5) a continental feminist philosophical interpretation of and approach to the problem of disembodiment from a realist perspective by problematizing continental and feminist philosophical anti-realism. The approach presented is itself an argument in defence of a feminist engagement with disembodiment and the dissertation’s contribution: a non-philosophical contribution to the problem of disembodiment via a continental feminist-realist philosophical approach. The approach is offered through the intersection of continental feminist realism and non- philosophy, and partially new realism. My conclusion is that an affirmative project and consideration of disembodiment for continental feminist philosophy is possible via a non- philosophical and new realist reconsideration of the One. (shrink)

A range of themes—race and gender, sexuality, otherness, sisterhood, and agency—run throughout this collection, and the chapters constitute a collective discourse at the intersection of Black feminist thought and continental philosophy, converging on a similar set of questions and concerns. These convergences are not random or forced, but are in many ways natural and necessary: the same issues of agency, identity, alienation, and power inevitably are addressed by both camps. Never before has a group of scholars worked (...) together to examine the resources these two traditions can offer one another. By bringing the relationship between these two critical fields of thought to the forefront, the book will encourage scholars to engage in new dialogues about how each can inform the other. If contemporary philosophy is troubled by the fact that it can be too limited, too closed, too white, too male, then this groundbreaking book confronts and challenges these problems. -/- Table of Contents -/- Foreword Beverly Guy-Sheftall Acknowledgments Introduction: Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Kathryn T. Gines, and Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 1. Black Feminism, Poststructuralism, and the Contested Character of Experience Diane Perpich -/- 2. Sartre, Beauvoir, and the Race/Gender Analogy: A Case for Black Feminist Philosophy Kathryn T. Gines -/- 3. The Difference That Difference Makes: Black Feminism and Philosophy Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 4. Antigone’s Other Legacy: Slavery and Colonialism in Tègònni: An African Antigone Tina Chanter -/- 5. L Is for . . . : Longing and Becoming in The L-Word’s Racialized Erotic Aimee Carrillo Rowe -/- 6. Race and Feminist Standpoint Theory Anika Maaza Mann -/- 7. Rethinking Black Feminist Subjectivity: Ann duCille and Gilles Deleuze Maria del Guadalupe Davidson -/- 8. From Receptivity to Transformation: On the Intersection of Race, Gender, and the Aesthetic in Contemporary Continental Philosophy Robin M. James -/- 9. Extending Black Feminist Sisterhood in the Face of Violence: Fanon, White Women, and Veiled Muslim Women Traci C. West -/- 10. Madness and Judiciousness: A Phenomenological Reading of a Black Woman’s Encounter with a Saleschild Emily S. Lee -/- 11. Black American Sexuality and the Repressive Hypothesis: Reading Patricia Hill Collins with Michel Foucault Camisha Russell -/- 12. Calling All Sisters: Continental Philosophy and Black Feminist Thinkers Kathy Glass -/- Afterword: Philosophy and the Other of the Second Sex George Yancy Contributor Notes Index. (shrink)

Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy in dialogue.

_Continental Philosophy: __A Critical Approach_ is a lucid and wide-ranging introduction to the key figures and philosophical movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Includes chapters on Hegel; Marx and Western Marxism; Schopenhauer, Freud, and Bergson; Nietzsche; hermeneutics; phenomenology; existentialism; structuralism,; poststructuralism; French feminism; and postmodernism. Provides an ideal text or background resource for many different introductory and advanced courses on modern European philosophy.

An explanation of how to organize and teach a course in recent continental thought, including treatments of the major figures in critical theory, hermeneutics, structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalytic feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and postmodernism. Reprint from *In the Socratic Tradition: Essays on Teaching Philosophy*, ed. Tziporah Kasachkoff (Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998).

From Immanuel Kant to Postmodernism, this volume provides an unparalleled student resource: a wide-ranging collection of the essential works of more than 50 seminal thinkers in modern European philosophy. Areas covered include Kant and German Idealism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Marxism and the Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism. Each section begins with a concise and helpful introduction, and all the texts have been selected for accessibility as well as significance, making the volume ideal for introductory and advanced (...) levels in philosophy, cultural studies, literary theory, and the history of modern thought. (shrink)

What makes philosophy on the continent of Europe so different and exciting? And why does it have such a reputation for being 'difficult'? Continental philosophy was initiated amid the revolutionary ferment of the 18th century, philosophers such as Kant and Hegel confronting the extremism of the time with theories that challenged the very formation of individual and social consciousness. Covering the great philosophers of the modern and postmodern eras – from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze right to (...) up Agamben and Žižek – and philosophical movements from German idealism to deconstruction and feminism – Christopher Kul-Want and Piero brilliantly elucidate some of the most thrilling and powerful ideas ever to have been discussed. (shrink)

This book punctuates the moments of crisis in continental thought from the foundational crisis of reason in Husserl’s call for a rigorous science of phenomenology to the current crisis of postmodernism and its rejection of Husserl’s metanarrative of history and rationality. The mediating links between these moments is the centrality of the epochal history of Being, the power of cultural and disciplinary practices, and the dispersal of meaning in the post-Husserlian and post-subjective philosophies of Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, and others. (...) Included here are the thoughts of leading scholars who critically discuss Husserl’s analysis of the crisis of Western thought and the importance of the concepts of “world” in Husserl’s early writings. The authors analyze the deprivileging of philosophy as social critique through the text of Husserl, Habermas, Foucault, and recent feminist theory. They examine the end of the epistemological and morally autonomous subject in continental thought. Together, these thoughts articulate multiple points or moments of crisis without cure or end. (shrink)

Twenty papers from a conference in Villanova, Pennsylvania discuss the politics, psychoanalysis and feminist theory, aesthetics, and ethics of phenomenology and existentialism in North America, from its beginnings in the 1940s to its ...

The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy is an accessible but sophisticated introduction to the most important figures in Continental philosophy in the last 200 years. Presents a definitive introduction to the core figures and topics of continental philosophy. Contains newly commissioned essays, all of which are written by internationally distinguished scholars. Provides a solid foundation for further study. Subjects include Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx and Marxism, Nietzsche, Husserl and Phenomenology, Heidegger, Sartre, critical theory, Habermas, (...) Gadamer, Foucault, Derrida, postmodernism, and French feminism. (shrink)

From Immanuel Kant to Postmodernism, this volume provides an unparalleled student resource: a wide-ranging collection of the essential works of more than 50 seminal thinkers in modern European philosophy. Areas covered include Kant and German Idealism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Marxism and the Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Deconstruction, and Postmodernism. Each section begins with a concise and helpful introduction, and all the texts have been selected for accessibility as well as significance, making the volume ideal for introductory and advanced (...) levels in philosophy, cultural studies, literary theory, and the history of modern thought. (shrink)

The first ever dictionary of continental philosophy to be published.With over 450 clearly written definitions and articles by an international team of specialists, this authoritative dictionary covers the thinkers, topics and technical terms associated with the many fields known as 'continental' philosophy'. Special care has been taken to explain the complex terminology of many continental thinkers. Researchers, students and professional philosophers alike will find the dictionary an invaluable reference tool.Key features include:*in-depth entries on major figures (...) and topics*over 190 shorter articles on other figures and topics*over 250 items on technical terms used by continental thinkers, from abjection [Kristeva] to worldhood [Heidegger]*coverage of related subjects that use continental terms and methods*extensive cross-referencing, allowing readers to relate and pursue ideas in depth.Entries include: Major Figures and Topics: Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Hegel, Heidegger, Husserl, Irigaray, Kant, NietzscheEpistemology, Feminism, German Idealism, Marxism, Phenomenology, Poststructuralism, Time, etc.Other figures and topics covered include: Adorno, Althusser, Arendt, Badiou, Barthes, Bergson, Butler, Haraway, Habermas, Kristeva, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Schelling, Schiller, Weber, Weil, Wittgenstein, Zizek, etc;African Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Death, Ecocriticism, Embodiment, Environmental Philosophy, Modernity, Philosophy of Nature, NeoThomism, Postcolonial Theory, Psychology, Race Theory, Sex / sexuality, Space, Speech Act Theory, Structuralism, Subject, 'Young Hegelians', etc. (shrink)

"Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy" presents a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the most recent developments in European thought. From feminist thought to environmental philosophy to analytic themes in Continental philosophy to recent discussions of citizenship, "Emerging Trends" offers an overview of the currents animating contemporary Continental philosophy. The volume focuses on thematic developments rather than individual figures, allowing the reader to follow the threads that weave different thinkers together. Each essay is (...) written by an expert in the area covered, displaying the passion of these experts for the fields they discuss without lapsing into jargon. The volume provides a broad map of the landscape of recent European thought as well as the latest thinking from leading scholars on key themes. (shrink)

"Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy" presents a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the most recent developments in European thought. From feminist thought to environmental philosophy to analytic themes in Continental philosophy to recent discussions of citizenship, "Emerging Trends" offers an overview of the currents animating contemporary Continental philosophy. The volume focuses on thematic developments rather than individual figures, allowing the reader to follow the threads that weave different thinkers together. Each essay is (...) written by an expert in the area covered, displaying the passion of these experts for the fields they discuss without lapsing into jargon. The volume provides a broad map of the landscape of recent European thought as well as the latest thinking from leading scholars on key themes. (shrink)

This major work of reference is an indispensable resource for anyone conducting research or teaching in philosophy. An international team of over 100 leading scholars has been brought together under the general editorship of Alan Schrift and the volume editors to provide authoritative analyses of the continental tradition of philosophy from Kant to the present day. Divided, chronologically, into eight volumes, "The History of Continental Philosophy" is designed to be accessible to a wide range of (...) readers, from the scholar looking for original insight and the latest thinking to the student wishing for a masterly encapsulation of a particular thinker's views. By placing continental philosophy within a historical context, "The History of Continental Philosophy" helps define what the continental tradition has been and where it is moving. It will become a landmark publication in its field. Volume 1 covers the period from 1780 until 1848, focusing primarily on the main philosophical figures and developments in Germany during that period, but also including a description of economic and social theories in France that set the stage for the philosophical and social movements that predominated in Germany and France during the second half of the nineteenth century. Volume 2 examines what is often referred to as the 'Age of Revolution' as various responses to Hegel, while also attending to developments in science, mathematics, sociology and aesthetics during the second half of the nineteenth century that would set the stage for the twentieth century. Volume 3 examines the earliest developments in the twentieth century: while attending to a number of key thinkers, it also discusses the emergence of French sociology in the Durkheim school, developments in modern science, the philosophical response to evolution, and the schools of phenomenology and neo-Kantianism. Volume 4, as the title indicates, charts the various responses to phenomenology that appeared in the years following Husserl, with particular attention to the emergence of existentialism and existential theology, as well as its relations with philosophy of science, aesthetics and ethics. Volume 5 surveys some of the main continental movements and philosophers associated with social and political philosophy and philosophy of the human sciences during the period from 1940 through to 1968. Volume 6 looks at the major figures associated with the two dominant movements that emerge in the 1960s - poststructuralism and critical theory - while also attending to the emergence of philosophical feminism and some influential figures in those years not easily situated in the "standard" histories of the period. Volume 7 examines the developments in Continental philosophy in the years, roughly, 1980-95, the period immediately after the hegemony of poststructuralism in France and of Habermas in Germany. Volume 8 attempts to situate the present scene in continental philosophy in terms of various new developments that are framed as attempts to rethink some of the classic themes with which the history of continental philosophy has been more or less consistently engaged. (shrink)

"Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy" presents a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the most recent developments in European thought. From feminist thought to environmental philosophy to analytic themes in Continental philosophy to recent discussions of citizenship, "Emerging Trends" offers an overview of the currents animating contemporary Continental philosophy. The volume focuses on thematic developments rather than individual figures, allowing the reader to follow the threads that weave different thinkers together. Each essay is (...) written by an expert in the area covered, displaying the passion of these experts for the fields they discuss without lapsing into jargon. The volume provides a broad map of the landscape of recent European thought as well as the latest thinking from leading scholars on key themes. (shrink)

Review of Maria del Guadaloupe Davidson, Kathryn T. Gines, and Donna-Dale L. Marcano (eds), Convergences: Black Feminism and Philosophy (Albany: SUNY, 2010).

This book, steeped in the traditions of both postcolonial theory and Continental philosophy, addresses fundamental questions about God and theology in the postcolonial world. Namely, Y.T. Vinayaraj asks whether Continental philosophies of God and the 'other' can attend to the struggles that entail human pain and suffering in the postcolonial context. The volume offers a constructive proposal for a Dalit theology of immanent God or de-othering God as it emerges out of the Lokayata, the Indian materialist epistemology. (...) Engaging with the post-Continental philosophers of immanence such as Gilles Deleuze, Giorgio Agamben, Catherine Malabou, and Jean-Luc Nancy, Vinayaraj explores the idea of a Dalit theology of God and body in the post-Continental context. The book investigates how there can be a Dalit theology of God without any Christian philosophical baggage of transcendentalism. The study ends with a clarion call for Indian Christian Theology to take a turn toward an immanence that is political and polydoxical in content. Y.T. Vinayaraj teaches Theology at the Dharma Jyoti Vidya Peeth and Nav Jyoti Post-Graduate Research Centre (NJPGRC), New Delhi, India. He holds a PhD from Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, USA, and is an ordained minister of the Mar Thoma Church. His research areas are Continental philosophy, cultural hermeneutics, and Dalit theology. (shrink)

Discusses Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Habermas, and recent feminist theory. Sees the crises as without cure or end. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The volume begins with a major statement by the French feminist culture critic Julia Kristeva and includes essays by well-known and also younger continental philosophers writing in the North American context and reassessing the European ...

Bridging the traditionally separate domains of analytic and Continental philosophies, Pamela Sue Anderson presents for the first time, a feminist framework for studying the philosophy of religion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Continental and Feminist Philosophical PedagogiesConditionsSina KramerIn thinking through what it means to teach continental and feminist philosophy, I keep coming back to a somewhat enigmatic line from Adorno’s essay, “Why Still Philosophy?”: “Because philosophy is good for nothing, it is not yet obsolete” (Adorno 2005, 15). I believe that this dialectical aphorism has everything to do with the conditions under which we (...) as teachers practice philosophy today, and continental and feminist philosophy in particular.On the one hand, Adorno’s remark is made in the context of the specific conditions—political, economic, philosophical, etc.—of his own time. On the other hand, Adorno writes that if philosophy is still necessary (and we should always take seriously this “if,” as well as the “not yet” of the quote above) then it is for the same reasons that philosophy has always been necessary: as critique. Philosophy is thus both spatially and temporally specific in that it plays particular roles in particular places and times, and it is universal in that its operation as critique has always been the same. We must therefore spell out the particular conditions of our historical moment in order for philosophy to play the critical role that it has purportedly always played. What are the conditions under which we teach continental and feminist philosophy today?I would point here to a few phenomena. First, President Barack Obama announced in his 2011 “State of the Union” address that in order for America to “win the future” we must invest in education, to reach the goal of having the [End Page 68] highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the end of the decade (Obama 2011). The president described investment in education as part of the larger of goal of supporting the competitive advantage of American workers. The president cast education in entirely economic terms: a greater quantity of graduates for the sake of a more economically prosperous nation.At the same time, some universities, especially those that depend in part upon dwindling state resources, have chosen to cut programs in the humanities in general or in philosophy in particular: at UNLV, at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, or at Middlesex University.1 Under the logic of fiscal austerity, universities are deciding that they can no longer “afford” to keep departments that are losing money or, which may amount to the same thing, programs that are no longer central to the mission of the university.Finally, recent research indicates that only about one-third of all teachers in higher education in the United States are tenured or on the tenure track; teaching has been farmed out, outsourced, or subcontracted to a contingent labor force with less job security, lower wages, and fewer benefits than those on the tenure track.2 And shortly after the president’s “State of the Union” address, the book Academically Adrift and accompanying articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times argued that college students are learning less, according to measurable metrics, even as they are paying more—that is, going into greater debt—for a degree that is less and less a guarantee of a stable middle-class income (Arum and Roksa 2011; Glenn 2011a, 2011b).In his dialectical aphorism, Adorno seems to set up a contradiction between philosophy and utility, between learning as an end in itself, and learning as an instrument toward some other end—a contradiction that goes back as far as philosophy’s stories about its own origins, to Thales and the olive-press. But this contradiction must be examined in each context in which it is raised. For instance, W. E. B. Du Bois seems to set up the same contradiction in The Souls of Black Folk, when he writes that “the true college will ever have one goal: not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes” (Du Bois 1997, 86). While this seems like the statement of a universal truth, it must be understood in the context of the larger argument in Souls, in which Du Bois argues that black people have a right to an education as... (shrink)

Feminist work in the history of philosophy has come of age as an innovative field in the history of philosophy. This volume marks that accomplishment with original essays by leading feminist scholars who ask basic questions: What is distinctive of feminist work in the history of philosophy? Is there a method that is distinctive of feminist historical work? How can women philosophers be meaningfully included in the history of the discipline? Who counts as (...) a philosopher? This collection is a unique collaboration among philosophers from North America and the Nordic Countries, including papers written from both analytic and continental philosophical perspectives and discussing both ancient and modern philosophers. Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy will be of interest to historians of philosophy, feminist theorists, women's studies faculty and students, and humanists interested in canon formation and transformation. (shrink)

"... some very serious critiques of French existential phenomenology and post-structuralism... the contributors offer some refreshingly new insights into some tried and 'true' philosophical texts and more recent works of literary theory." -- Philosophy and Literature "By bridging the gap between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the authors of The Thinking Muse: Feminism and the Modern French Philosophy largely overcome the cultural polarity between 'male thinker' and 'female muse'." -- Ethics "These engaging essays by American Feminists bring (...) toether feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. The editors provide an excellent introductory overview, making this an ideal book for courses in feminist theory and philosophy and modern French thought." -- Philosopher's Index "The concerns raised in this volume are substantial.... a solid addition to the canon of American feminist philosophy." -- Philosophy and Literature "... a forum for feminist appropriations of existential and post-structuralist philosophy." -- Canadian Philosophical Reviews Marking a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse (female) and thinker (male), The Thinking Muse revises the scope and methods of philosophical reflection. These engaging essays by American feminists bring together feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

This major discussion takes a look at some of the most important ethical issues confronting us today by some of the world’s leading thinkers. Including essays from leading thinkers, such as Jurgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Julia Kristeva and Paul Ricoeur, the book’s highlight – an interview with Jacques Derrida - presents the most accessible insight into his thinking on ethics and politics for many years. Exploring topics ranging from history, memory, revisionism, and the self and responsibility to democracy, multiculturalism, feminism (...) and the future of politics, the essays are grouped into five thematic sections: * hermeneutics * deconstruction * critical theory * psychoanalysis * applied ethics. Each section considers the challenges posed by ethics and how critical thinking has transformed philosophy today. Questioning Ethics affords an unsurpassed overview of the state of ethical thinking today by some of the world’s foremost philosophers. (shrink)

This major discussion takes a look at some of the most important ethical issues confronting us today by some of the world’s leading thinkers. Including essays from leading thinkers, such as Jurgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, Julia Kristeva and Paul Ricoeur, the book’s highlight – an interview with Jacques Derrida - presents the most accessible insight into his thinking on ethics and politics for many years. Exploring topics ranging from history, memory, revisionism, and the self and responsibility to democracy, multiculturalism, feminism (...) and the future of politics, the essays are grouped into five thematic sections: * hermeneutics * deconstruction * critical theory * psychoanalysis * applied ethics. Each section considers the challenges posed by ethics and how critical thinking has transformed philosophy today. _Questioning Ethics_ affords an unsurpassed overview of the state of ethical thinking today by some of the world’s foremost philosophers. (shrink)

The Dimensions of Difference examines space, time, and bodies in the works of three contemporary women directors and four continental philosophers, leading to a new approach to the question of sexual difference and its place within film criticism.

In ‘Situated Knowledges’, feminist science studies scholar – and, as will be argued in this chapter, critical new materialisms scene-setter – Donna Haraway (1988) reveals her own politicised ‘electroshock’ (578) therapeutic take on epistemology and what it means to create knowledge from the ground up. She builds her argument upon Marxist, historical and feminist materialisms, the rich tradition of feminist epistemology and, above all, Sandra Harding’s (1986, 1987, 1991) standpoint theory. Connecting the foregoing philosophies to the Foucauldian (...) idea of power/knowledge (Foucault 1990 [1976], 1995 [1975]) and a critique of disembodied, objectifying vision, Haraway conceptualises her materialist project along four criss-crossing axes, namely: ontology (theorising what the world is); epistemology (theorising about how to see the world as it is); ethics (theorising why the world is as it is and how it ought to be); and politics (theorising how to effectively change the world). It is in the thought-provoking assemblage of these four philosophical domains that Haraway’s eco-philosophy sets the framework for what this chapter describes as critical new materialist philosophies. (shrink)

Much of feminist philosophy of language so far can be described as critical—critical either of language itself or of philosophy of language, and calling for change on the basis of these criticisms. Those making these criticisms suggest that the changes are needed for the sake of feminist goals — either to better allow for feminist work to be done or, more frequently, to bring an end to certain key ways that women are disadvantaged. In this (...) entry, I examine these criticisms. I also examine work by feminists that seems to suggest some of the criticisms are misplaced: that, for example, philosophy of language is better able to help in feminist projects than critics suppose. My focus in this entry will generally be on the analytic tradition. For continental approaches, see the entries on feminist approaches to the intersection of analytic and continental philosophy , feminist approaches to the intersection of pragmatism and continental philosophy. (shrink)

Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood through Continental, Japanese and Feminist Philosophies explores the importance of the body to ethical selfhood. Through her comparative feminist approach to ethics, the critical comparison McCarthy offers in Ethics Embodied not only illuminates complexities in Continental, Japanese and Feminist philosophies, it provides clues about how to live the model of selfhood, ethics, and the body that emerges through the encounter.

Much of the history of Western ethical thought has revolved around debates about what constitutes a good life, and claims that a good life is achievable only by certain human beings. In Feminist Philosophies of Life, feminist, new materialist, posthumanist, and ecofeminist philosophers challenge this tendency, approaching the question of life from alternative perspectives. Signalling the importance of distinctively feminist reflections on matters of shared concern, Feminist Philosophies of Life not only exposes the propensity of discourses (...) to normalize and exclude differently abled, racialized, feminized, and gender nonconforming people, it also asks questions about how life is constituted and understood without limiting itself to the human. A collection of articles that focuses on life as an organizing principle for ontology, ethics, and politics, chapters of this study respond to feminist thinkers such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Judith Butler, Adriana Cavarero, Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, and Søren Kierkegaard. Divided into three parts, the book debates the question of life in and against the emerging school of new feminist materialism, provides feminist phenomenological and existentialist accounts of life, and focuses on lives marked by a particular precarity such as disability or incarceration, as well as life in the face of a changing climate. Calling for a broader account of lived experience, Feminist Philosophies of Life contains persuasive, original, and diverse analyses that address some of the most crucial feminist issues. Contributors include Christine Daigle, Shannon Dea, Lindsay Eales, Elizabeth Grosz, Lisa Guenther, Lynne Huffer, Ada Jaarsma, Stephanie Jenkins, Ladelle McWhorter, Jane Barter Moulaison, Astrida Neimanis, Danielle Peers, Stephen Seely, Hasana Sharp, Chloë Taylor, Florentien Verhage, Rachel Loewen Walker, and Cynthia Willett. (shrink)

Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood through Continental, Japanese and Feminist Philosophies explores the importance of the body to ethical selfhood. Through her comparative feminist approach to ethics, the critical comparison McCarthy offers in Ethics Embodied not only illuminates complexities in Continental, Japanese and Feminist philosophies, it provides clues about how to live the model of selfhood, ethics, and the body that emerges through the encounter.

I begin with the assumption that a philosophically significant tension exists today in feminist philosophy of religion between those subjects who seek to become divine and those who seek their identity in mutual recognition. My critical engagement with the ambiguous assertions of Luce Irigaray seeks to demonstrate, one the one hand, that a woman needs to recognize her own identity but, on the other hand, that each subject whether male or female must struggle in relation to the other (...) in order to maintain realism about life and death. No one can avoid the recognition that we are each given life but each of us also dies. In addition, I raise a more general, philosophical problem for analytic philosophers who attempt to read Continental philosophy of religion: how should philosophers interpret deliberately ambiguous assertions? For example, what does Irigaray mean in asserting. 'Divinity is what we need to become free, autonomous, sovereign'? To find an answer, I turn to the distinctively French readings of the Hegelian struggle for recognition which have preoccupied Continental philosophers especially since the first half of the last century. I explore the struggle for mutual recognition between womrn and men who must face the reality of life and death in order to avoid the projection of their fear of mortality onto the other sex. This includes a critical look at Irigaray's account of subjectivity and divinity. I turn to the French philosopher Michèle Le Doeuff in order to shift the focus from divinity to intersubjectivity. I conclude that taking seriously the struggle for mutual recognition between subjects forces contemporary philosophers of religion to be realist in their living and dying. With this in mind, the lesson from the Continent for philosophy of religion is that we must not stop yearning for recognition. Indeed, we must event risk our autonomy/divinity in seeking to recognize intersubjectivity. (shrink)

"The book’s contribution to feminist philosophy of religion is substantial and original.... It brings the continental and Anglo-American traditions into substantive and productive conversation with each other." —Ellen Armour To what extent has the emergence of the study of religion in Western culture been gendered? In this exciting book, Grace Jantzen proposes a new philosophy of religion from a feminist perspective. Hers is a vital and significant contribution which will be essential reading in the study (...) of religion. (shrink)