Jantzen, Grace. Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion
1999, Indiana University Press.
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Added by: Emily PaulPublisher's note: "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.Comment: Just about any of these chapters would make for a great set reading, in my opinion, but in particular for a course that strives for a more cross-cultural philosophy of religion. In particular, the introduction and chapters 1 and 11 would make for good and accessible primary readings.
Jones, Amelia. Art History / Art Criticism: Performing Meaning
1999, In: Performing the Body / Performing the Text. Ed. Amelia Jones and Andrew Stephenson. New York: Routledge. 39-55.
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Added by: Rossen VentzislavovSummary: Jones' essay offers a critique of philosophical and art-historical interpretation. Her main contention is that attributions of meaning in philosophical aesthetics and art criticism are traditionally a manner of top-down bestowal - i.e. artworks are rendered intelligible by certain pre-established and often institutionalized conceptual paradigms. In this, the often unstable meanings of art works themselves are not only inadvertently lost but often even intentionally stifled. To rehabilitate such meanings, and destabilize the homogenous discourses that try to contain them, Jones proposes a "feminist phenomenological approach… deeply invested in performing meaning." What this amounts to is a newfound sensitivity to all aspects of art - the performative, physical, contingent, messy, gendered, theatrical, emotional etc. - that have been systematically marginalized by philosophers and art critics since Kant. There is, according to Jones, an intractable economy of desire that absorbs artistic creation into the cumulative enterprise of human interaction and, instead of sweeping it under the rug for the sake of stability, philosophers and art critics should engage this economy on its own tentative terms.Comment: Useful in classes on art interpretation. Can inspire great discussions when read together with (parts of) Kant's Critique of Judgment.
Kelbessa, Workineh. Women and the Environment in Africa
2018, in Jonathan Chimakonam (ed.), African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation. Routledge
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Added by: Kas BernaysAbstract:
African Philosophy and Environmental Conservation is about the unconcern for, and marginalisation of, the environment in African philosophy. The issue of the environment is still very much neglected by governments, corporate bodies, academics and specifically, philosophers in the sub-Saharan Africa. The entrenched traditional world-views which give a place of privilege to one thing over the other, as for example men over women, is the same attitude that privileges humans over the environment. This culturally embedded orientation makes it difficult for stake holders in Africa to identify and confront the modern day challenges posed by the neglect of the environment. In a continent where deep-rooted cultural and religious practices, as well as widespread ignorance, determine human conduct towards the environment, it becomes difficult to curtail much less overcome the threats to our environment. It shows that to a large extent, the African cultural privileging of men over women and of humans over the environment somewhat exacerbates and makes the environmental crisis on the continent intractable. For example, it raises the challenging puzzle as to why women in Africa are the ones to plant the trees and men are the ones to fell them.Comment (from this Blueprint): A consideration of the relationship between ecology and gender within African traditions.
Keller, Evelyn Fox, Helen Longino. Feminism and Science
1996, Oxford University Press.
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Added by: Benny GoldbergPublisher's Note: Over the past fifteen years, a new dimension to the analysis of science has emerged. Feminist theory, combined with the insights of recent developments in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, has raised a number of new and important questions about the content, practice, and traditional goals of science. Feminists have pointed to a bias in the choice and definition of problems with which scientists have concerned themselves, and in the actual design and interpretation of experiments, and have argued that modern science evolved out of a conceptual structuring of the world that incorporated particular and historically specific ideologies of gender. The seventeen outstanding articles in this volume reflect the diversity and strengths of feminist contributions to current thinking about science.Comment: A wonderful edited collection of articles on feminist reactions to and interpretations of science. Perfect for introductory courses in feminist philosophy, feminist philosophy of science, and general philosophy of science.
Khader, Serene J.. Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic
2018, OUP USA
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Added by: Suddha Guharoy and Andreas SorgerPublisher’s Note:
Decolonizing Universalism develops a genuinely anti-imperialist feminism. Against relativism/universalism debates that ask feminists to either reject normativity or reduce feminism to a Western conceit, Khader's nonideal universalism rediscovers the normative core of feminism in opposition to sexist oppression and reimagines the role of moral ideals in transnational feminist praxis.
Comment (from this Blueprint): The book is a prescription for feminist praxis in lands and cultures which have histories different from that of the vanguards of the (‘Western’) world. It challenges both the ‘progressive’ ideals of the Enlightenment, which (according to the author) are ethnocentric in many ways, and their universalizing tendencies. It recognizes, and is apprehensive of, the fact that Enlightenment values operate as background assumptions in the works of many Northern and Western feminists, all the more when they are concerned with advancing women’s rights in ‘other’ cultures. The author rejects such tendencies and proposes a different approach to the understanding of normativity and universalism.
Kittay, Eva Feder. Forever Small: The Strange Case of Ashley X
2011, Hypatia, 26 (3): 610-631.
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Added by: Rochelle DuFordAbstract: I explore the ethics of altering the body of a child with severe cognitive disabilities in such a way that keeps the child 'forever small.' The parents of Ashley, a girl of six with severe cognitive and developmental disabilities, in collaboration with her physicians and the Hospital Ethics Committee, chose to administer growth hormones that would inhibit her growth. They also decided to remove her uterus and breast buds, assuring that she would not go through the discomfort of menstruation and would not grow breasts. In this way she would stay 'forever small' and be able to be carried and handled by family members. They claimed that doing this would ensure that she would be able to be part of the family and of family activities and to have familial care. But the procedure has raised thorny ethical questions. I wish to explore these questions philosophically by bringing to bear my own experiences as a mother of a grown daughter with severe cognitive impairments.Comment: This reading both introduces the controversial case of Ashley X and also provides a set of ethical considerations concerning altering the bodies of persons with severe cognitive disabilities. It would serve as an excellent introduction to a unit on disability, a unit on the ethics of care, or concerning the limits of parental paternalism.
Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Gender and Aesthetics: An Introduction
2004, London: Psychology Press.
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Added by: Simon FoktPublisher's note: Feminist approaches to art are extremely influential and widely studied across a variety of disciplines, including art theory, cultural and visual studies, and philosophy. Gender and Aesthetics is an introduction to the major theories and thinkers within art and aesthetics from a philosophical perspective, carefully introducing and examining the role that gender plays in forming ideas about art. It is ideal for anyone coming to the topic for the first time. Organized thematically, the book introduces in clear language the most important topics within feminist aesthetics:
- Why were there so few women painters?
- Art, pleasure and beauty
- Music, literature and painting
- The role of gender in taste and food
- What is art and who is an artist?
- Disgust and the sublime.
Comment: Chapter 5 is particularly useful in teaching on art theories. It offers an interesting review of art theories from a feminist perspective, noting the gendered character of existing definitions. It may be good to teach it alongside Brand's ‘Glaring Omissions in Traditional Theories of Art’ to best bring out these issues. Secondly, it inspires the question: given the problematic exclusionary character of art history and theory, would it not be better if we did not have a definition of art which we can use to exclude? The value of the feminist art discussed in the chapter lies largely in its ability to expose the biases present in the artworld and expressed in theories of art. Thus the fact that artists tend to create works which challenge existing theories might be in fact desirable.
Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Pleasure: Reflections on aesthetics and feminism
1993, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (2):199-206.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirIntroduction: For some time my own interests in aesthetics and in feminism appeared to run parallel yet mutually exclusive courses, but it seems to me now that philosophical aesthetics and feminist views of culture have begun to dovetail and to share certain concerns and orientations. Philo sophical aesthetics is not by and large taking note of this, however, and in the first section of this essay I argue that feminist perspectives pro vide a vantage from which the appearance of breakdown in unified theorizing can be seen to have an underlying order and pattern.2 Thus at first I shall emphasize a potential harmony be tween feminist critiques and recent directions in aesthetics. Then in the second section I shall focus on one of the subjects that has all but dropped from view in the reshuffling of the oretic concerns: aesthetic appreciation or plea sure. I argue that this concept is urgently in need of reexamination, a need that is especially evi dent when we consider feminist alternatives to the traditional idea of aesthetic pleasure.
Kristeva, Julia. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia
1989, translated by L. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Added by: Zoé Grange-MarczakAbstract:
Kristeva (b. 1941) is known for mixing psychoanalysis, literary criticism and philosophy. In this essay, she explores depression, melancholy and mourning, starting from one of its most exaggerated manifestation. Seeing pain as "the hidden side of [her] philosophy", she investigates it through language and aesthetics. In doing so, Kristeva uncover its meaning by relying heavily on the symbolic dimensions, demonstrating how depression destabilizes language itself. With a particular focus on the feminine experience of sadness, she discusses romantic relationships and maternity, using Freud, Klein and Lacan alongside empirical observations from her psychoanalytic practice. The main thesis locates the origin of true depression in the separation from the mother, where she finds the "lost Thing" which causes melancholy without a precise loss, leading to a ruin of identity itself through an impossible mourning. Engaging with Holbein, Nerval, Dostoevsky and Duras, a large part of Kristeva's book is dedicated to a quest for the sublimation of such emotions into works of art. Deliberately fragmented and linked with poststructuralism, Black Sun is a a personal account of how subjective emotions are tied with signs and the possibility of meaning. Part of a psychoanalytic, feminist reading of feminism, Kristeva has been accused of essentialism.
Comment: Black Sun is especially useful to expose the links between philosophy and psychoanalysis. Kristeva's most well-known work, it serves as an introduction to both the author herself and to the philosophical and literary currents she is part of. Her distinct, lyrical style makes it a challenging books which remains engaging.
Lintott, Sheila. Sublime Hunger: A Consideration of Eating Disorders Beyond Beauty
2003, Hypatia 18 (4):65-86.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: In this paper, I argue that one of the most intense ways women are encouraged to enjoy sublime experiences is via attempts to control their bodies through excessive dieting. If this is so, then the societal-cultural contributions to the problem of eating disorders exceed the perpetuation of a certain beauty ideal to include the almost universal encouragement women receive to diet, coupled with the relative shortage of opportunities women are afforded to experience the sublime.
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