Diversity Reading List

Abstract:
This article represents a response to ‘the problem of women and African philosophy’, which refers mainly to the absence of strong women’s and feminist voices within the discipline of African philosophy. I investigate the possibility that African women are not so much excluded from the institutionalized discipline of philosophy, as preferring fiction as a genre for intellectual expression. This hypothesis can be supported by some feminists who read the absolute prioritisation of abstraction and generalization over the concrete and the particular as a masculine and western oppressive strategy. Attention to the concrete and the unique which is made possible by literature more readily than by philosophy, could thus operate as a form of political resistance in certain contexts. If fiction is currently the preferred form of intellectual expression of African women, it is crucial that the community of professional philosophers in a context like South Africa should come to terms with the relevance of such a preference for philosophy’s self-conception, and it should work to make these intellectual contributions philosophically fruitful. In the process, we may entertain the hope that philosophy itself will move closer to its root or source as ‘love of wisdom’.

Abstract: How, if at all, are we to distinguish between the works that we call ‘art’ and those that we call ‘pornography’? This question gets a grip because from classical Greek vases and the frescoes of Pompeii to Renaissance mythological painting and sculpture to Modernist prints, the European artistic tradition is chock-full of art that looks a lot like pornography. In this paper I propose a way of thinking about the distinction that is grounded in art historical considerations regarding the function of erotic images in 16 th -century Italy. This exploration suggests that the root of the erotic art/pornography distinction was—at least in this context—class: in particular, the need for a special category of unsanctioned illicit images arose at the very time when print culture was beginning to threaten elite privilege. What made an erotic representation exceed the boundaries of acceptability, I suggest, was not its extreme libidinosity but, rather, its widespread availability and, thereby, its threat to one of the mechanisms of sustaining class privilege.

Abstract:
The points this chapter labors to make are straight and simple. First, the documented reflections of women in contemporary African philosophy, of individuals such as Sophie Oluwole, Anke Graness, Wangari Maathai, Nkiru Nzegwu, Ebunoluwa Oduwole, Betty Wambui, Gail Presbey, and Louise du Toit, are impossible to deny or to ignore; the heritage they (and other female thinkers on the African condition, too numerous to do justice to here) have bequeathed to African philosophy and the world deserves the recognition denied it for so long, and current African philosophical historiography must remediate this epistemic injustice. Furthermore, I maintain that concepts are crucial in philosophical discourse, and this work has thrown up fresh concepts and keywords such as ‘his-story’, ‘her-story’, ‘her-storycide’, ‘her-storicity’, and ‘Afro-herstoricism’. These concepts are pregnant with implications, consequences, and creative possibilities for African philosophy and her place in the philosophical world. These concepts encapsulate the idea that women’s lives, experiences, deeds, contributions, voices, perceptions, representations, struggles, problems, expectations and participation in human affairs have been too long neglected or undervalued in standard historical narratives, and that serious cognizance must be taken of the creative works that women have produced in the development of knowledge and how these have affected the philosophic temper. Contemporary African philosophy cannot run away from honoring its ‘debts and duties’ to women in African philosophy.

Abstract:

From the newsletter's introduction: "Lauren Eichler [...] examines the resonances between feminist and Native American analyses of classical logic. After considering the range of responses, from overly monolithic rejection to more nuanced appreciation, Eichler argues for a careful, pluralist understanding of logic as she articulates her suggestion that feminists and Native American philosophers could build fruitful alliances around this topic."

Publisher's Note: Nobody should really have to point out that political philosophy is political. Yet in this highly original and provocative book Lorna Finlayson argues that in fact it is necessary to do so. Offering a critique of mainstream liberal political philosophy through close, critical engagement with a series of specific debates and arguments, Finlayson analyzes the way in which apparently neutral methodological devices such as 'charitable interpretation' and 'constructive criticism' function so as to protect against challenges to the status quo. At each stage, Finlayson demonstrates that political philosophy is suffering from a complex process of 'depoliticization.' Even in cases where it appears that the dominant framework of liberal political philosophy is being strongly challenged - as, for example, in the case of the 'realist' critique of 'ideal theory' - this book argues that the debate is set up in such a way as to impose strict limits on the kind of dissent that is possible. Only by dragging these hidden presuppositions into the foreground can we arrive at a clear-eyed appreciation of such debates, and perhaps look beyond the artificially constricted landscape in which they seek to confine us.

Abstract:

This paper starts out from two feminist criticisms of classical logic, namely Andrea Nye’s general rejection of logic and Val Plumwood’s criticism of the standard notion of negation in classical logic. I then look at some of Gottlob Frege’s reflections on negation in one of his later Logical Investigations. It will appear clear that Frege’s notion of negation is not easily pegged in the general category of ‘Otherness’ that Plumwood uses to characterize negation in classical logic. In the second half of the paper, I discuss the claim that the adversarial method of argumentation in philosophy is hostile to feminist goals and perhaps responsible for the low numbers of women engaged in academic philosophy. Against this hypothesis, I claim that a more naturalistic perspective on logic can avoid essentialism and provide a feminist friendly and pluralist view of logic, human reasoning, and philosophical argumentation.

Publisher's Note: In this timely book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation's rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude's mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African American politics. According to Glaude, Dewey's pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life - or what we often speak of as the blues - can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black, or that short-circuit imaginative responses to problems confronting actual black people. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, In a Shade of Blue seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking, and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity, Glaude argues, can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied. Heady, inspirational, and brimming with practical wisdom, In a Shade of Blue is a remarkable work of political commentary on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century

Publisher's Note: Contemporary theorists use the term "social construction" with the aim of exposing how what's purportedly "natural" is often at least partly social and, more specifically, how this masking of the social is politically significant. In these previously published essays, Sally Haslanger draws on insights from feminist and critical race theory to explore and develop the idea that gender and race are positions within a structure of social relations. On this interpretation, the point of saying that gender and race are socially constructed is not to make a causal claim about the origins of our concepts of gender and race, or to take a stand in the nature/nurture debate, but to locate these categories within a realist social ontology. This is politically important, for by theorizing how gender and race fit within different structures of social relations we are better able to identify and combat forms of systematic injustice. Although the central essays of the book focus on a critical social realism about gender and race, these accounts function as case studies for a broader critical social realism.

Abstract:
There is a deep well of rage inside of me. Rage about how I as an individual have been treated in philosophy; rage about how others I know have been treated; and rage about the conditions that I'm sure affect many women and minorities in philosophy, and have caused many others to leave. Most of the time I suppress this rage and keep it sealed away. Until I came to MIT in 1998, I was in a constant dialogue with myself about whether to quit philosophy, even give up tenure, to do something else. In spite of my deep love for philosophy, it just didn't seem worth it. And I am one of the very lucky ones, one of the ones who has been successful by the dominant standards of the profession. Whatever the numbers say about women and minorities in philosophy, numbers don't begin to tell the story. Things may be getting better in some contexts, but they are far from acceptable.

Abstract:
Canons of intellectual “greats” anchor the history and scope of academic disciplines. Within international relations (IR), such a canon emerged in the mid-twentieth century and is almost entirely male. Why are women thinkers absent from IR’s canon? We show that it is not due to a lack of international thought, or that this thought fell outside established IR theories. Rather it is due to the gendered and racialized selection and reception of work that is deemed to be canonical. In contrast, we show what can be gained by reclaiming women’s international thought through analyses of three intellectuals whose work was authoritative and influential in its own time or today. Our findings question several of the basic premises underpinning IR’s existing canon and suggest the need for a new research agenda on women international thinkers as part of a fundamental rethinking of the history and scope of the discipline.