Diversity Reading List

Summary: Abhinavagupta’s famed commentary on Bharatamuni’s treatise on drama, the Nāṭyaśāstra, in which he details aesthetic expression and experience according to a theory of rasa, or aesthetic relish. Abhinavagupta’s theory is the most influential account of how the rasas or aesthetic emotions transcend the bounds of the spectator and artwork in a three-part process including depersonalization, universalization, and identification.

Abstract: This paper examines the roles of culture in the principles of biomedical ethics. Drawing on examples from African, Navajo and Western cultures, the paper maintains that various elements of culture are indispensable to the application of the principles of biomedical ethics.

Abstract:
An African philosophy that excludes women despite its African cultural origin and DNA of complementarity, inclusion, interrelatedness, and interconnectedness, as highlighted by concepts like ‘Ubuntu’, is indeed an aberration. The excuse that the process of forging the African identity in an era of exclusion from rationality called for a blanket or block procedure that could not accommodate demographic disaggregation is untenable. Also, the assumption of gender neutrality is a farce. This African philosophical enterprise is essentially an exhibition of a colonized mentality. The hermeneutic analysis of the pre-colonial Yoruba African world-view, its concept of existence, being/self, governance, and eldership, has offered proof that ideas of interconnectedness, interrelatedness, being-with-others, inclusion, and complementarity are entrenched and inseparable from the African world-view. In conclusion, it is therefore a valid argument and conclusion that if African philosophy is based on African world-views of complementarity, inclusion, and being-with-others, then external (colonial) influence on thought and the socialization process is responsible for the contemporary marginalization of women. When a correct diagnosis has been made, a prescription can be made accurately, and the cure is at hand.

Publisher’s Note:

The point of departure of this publication is philosophy, more precisely African philosophy and the question of the possibility of using African languages in philosophical discourse. This book sees Afrophone literatures as a prominent locus of philosophical discourse in African cultures. In its eleven chapters, the book investigates literary works in African languages and reads them with respect to their contribution to philosophy. Studying Swahili, Ndebele, Shona, Bambara, Yoruba and Lingala literatures, we have found philosophical insights which sometimes amount to no more than philosophical commonplaces, but occasionally make highly original contributions to philosophy. The deeper we penetrated into Afrophone discourses, the more remote became the departure point. The issue of "philosophies in African languages" was both methodologically and empirically settled, and we found ourselves looking for "a philosophy for Afrophone literatures". Philosophy became more of a tool than a goal in this process: it has the conceptual inventory to articulate the insights found in Afrophone literatures. Drawing on both Western and African philosophical traditions, with their concepts and conceptual frameworks, provides these new articulations with the necessary distance to secure a creative reflexion of the literary texts, developing their theme and showing them in a broader context of intellectual history. This book examines literatures in six African languages, from several regions within Bantu Africa (Swahili, Lingala, Shona, Ndebele) and from West Africa (Bambara, Yoruba). With the exception of Yoruba, where (although we know the language to some extent) we used texts collected and translated by other researchers, we have always relied on original texts written (and mostly also published) by their authors.

Abstract:

A Universal Basic Income (UBI) has much to offer, particularly to women. A UBI could help fill the gaps in U.S. social programs that leave women economically vulnerable. And the tax increase needed to fund the program poses no serious threat to the economy. The libertarian right will surely howl that “high taxes” dramatically reduce work and savings. But economic research challenges that prediction. Raising the right taxes, to fund the right programs, can render freedom and equality compatible with economic growth. Refreshingly, Van Parijs argues the case for the UBI in terms of freedom – a value too seldom invoked in American social welfare policy. For similar reasons, Bruce Ackerman and I have proposed stakeholding – a one-time, unconditional grant to young citizens. Although stakeholding and the UBI differ in important ways, I want to focus on their shared strengths: both proposals could enhance women’s freedom and economic security by breaking the link between social welfare benefits and paid work.

Abstract:
In 1987, more than a decade before the dawn of queer theory, Ifi Amadiume published the groundbreaking 'Male Daughters, Female Husbands' to critical acclaim. This compelling, enduring, and highly original book argues that gender, as constructed in Western feminist discourse, did not exist in Africa before the colonial imposition of a dichotomous understanding of sexual difference. Amadiume examines the African societal structures that enabled people to achieve power within fluid masculine and feminine roles. At a time when gender and queer theory is viewed by many as overly focused on identity politics, this apt text not only warns against the danger of projecting Western notions of difference onto other cultures, but also questions the very concept of gender itself.

Abstract:
In 1987, more than a decade before the dawn of queer theory, Ifi Amadiume published the groundbreaking 'Male Daughters, Female Husbands' to critical acclaim. This compelling, enduring, and highly original book argues that gender, as constructed in Western feminist discourse, did not exist in Africa before the colonial imposition of a dichotomous understanding of sexual difference. Amadiume examines the African societal structures that enabled people to achieve power within fluid masculine and feminine roles. At a time when gender and queer theory is viewed by many as overly focused on identity politics, this apt text not only warns against the danger of projecting Western notions of difference onto other cultures, but also questions the very concept of gender itself.

Abstract:
In 1987, more than a decade before the dawn of queer theory, Ifi Amadiume published the groundbreaking 'Male Daughters, Female Husbands' to critical acclaim. This compelling, enduring, and highly original book argues that gender, as constructed in Western feminist discourse, did not exist in Africa before the colonial imposition of a dichotomous understanding of sexual difference. Amadiume examines the African societal structures that enabled people to achieve power within fluid masculine and feminine roles. At a time when gender and queer theory is viewed by many as overly focused on identity politics, this apt text not only warns against the danger of projecting Western notions of difference onto other cultures, but also questions the very concept of gender itself.

Abstract:
The ideologies and realities of Islam, environmental ethics, and eco-feminism are not opposed. There is a range of overlapping ideas and practices that suggest that Islamic teachings are compatible with the tenets of environmental ethics and ecofeminism. Through exploring the holy texts’ views on the treatment of Creation, including key issues of environmental degradation and the equality of women, as well as the intersections between these two issues, this chapter argues that the moral imperative of Islam is to protect and be just and merciful to God's Creation. However, this relationship is distorted in the context of a capitalist market and patriarchal culture, enabling a reading of Islam skewed toward inequality, domination, and exploitation. Therefore, while the stewardship of the environment and the wellbeing of women is in accord with Islamic ethics, this is overshadowed by sociohistorical conditions characterized by exploitation.

Abstract: This essay explores the theories of the person within Western and Akan traditions. It identifies six obstacles to theory comparison. It argues that there may be no non-question begging way of comparing theories since these theories themselves play key roles in understanding how each is to be used.