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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael Greer
Introduction: The paucity of literature on the black woman is outrageous on its face. But we must also contend with the fact that too many of these rare studies must claim as their signal achievement the reinforcement of fictitious cliches. They have given credence to grossly distorted categories through which the black woman continues to be perceived.Debra Jackson. An Examination of Racialized Assumptions in Antirape Discourse2003, Studies in Practical Philosophy: A Journal of Ethical and Political Philosophy 3.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Corbin Covington
Abstract: In this paper it is argued that contemporary conceptualisation of rape obscure the real but often unexamined connections between racism and sexual assault. Indeed, women of color are more likely to be victimised by sexual assault than white women. They are also less likely to report their assault, less likely to be believed and less likely to participate in the anti rape movement. This suggests that the racial factor should be involved in any discussion on sexual assault.Comment:
Deloria Jr., Vine. Why We Respect Our Elders Burial Grounds2004, In: American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays. Anne Waters (ed.), Blackwell (Oxford).-
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Added by: Sonja Dobroski and Quentin PharrAbstract:
This book brings together a diverse group of American Indian thinkers to discuss traditional and contemporary philosophies and philosophical issues. The essays presented here address philosophical questions pertaining to knowledge, time, place, history, science, law, religion, nationhood, ethics, and art, as understood from a variety of Native American standpoints. Unique in its approach, this volume represents several different tribes and nations and amplifies the voice of contemporary American Indian culture struggling for respect and autonomy. Taken together, the essays collected here exemplify the way in which American Indian perspectives enrich contemporary philosophy.Comment:
available in this Blueprint
Demaria, Christina. The Performative Body of Marina Abramović Rerelating (in) Time and Space2004, The European Journal of Women's Studies 1(3): 295-307.-
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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov
Abstract: Can a performance be analysed as a textual practice? Starting from this question, the article tries to describe the effets du sens (meaning effects) of some of the work of Marina Abramović, a Serbian performer and visual artist. From the 1970s, when the so-called body art emerged as a visual genre, offering the artist's body as a naked site of inscription, up to the present, when performing has become a more playful and direct transmission of energy between the doer and the viewer, the work of Abramović represents an effective and powerful example of the body-as-a-text in which subjectivity can be re-expressed and reinvented through the transformations of the relation between time and space. In the strong relationship created between the performer and the audience, what is enacted is a translation–transduction of material and cognitive meanings that results in a redefinition of a subjective and, simultaneously, collective experience of identity.Comment: This is a prime example of feminist aesthetics and its treatment of the human body. Demaria's main contention is that performance art can be understood textually and representationally even if it does not lay an explicit claim to either type of content. She agrees with Judith Butler's notion of citationality as a perpetual re-inscription of power norms and codes onto the human body. Since bodily presence plays such an important part in most performance art, the question of the possibility of embodied meaning arises naturally. Demaria uses the art of Marina Abramović to show that the question should be answered in the affirmative. Abramović's body exercises discursive transgressions (of language and code) in ways that, according to Demaria, establish a new language of dissent.
Dembroff, Robin. What is Sexual Orientation?2018, Philosophers' Imprint 16.-
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Rory Wilson
Abstract: Ordinary discourse is filled with discussions about ‘sexual orientation’. This discourse might suggest a common understanding of what sexual orientation is. But even a cursory search turns up vastly differing, conflicting, and sometimes ethically troubling characterizations of sexual orientation. The conceptual jumble surrounding sexual orientation suggests that the topic is overripe for philosophical exploration. This paper lays the groundwork for such an exploration. In it, I offer an account of sexual orientation – called ‘Bidimensional Dispositionalism’ – according to which sexual orientation concerns what sex[es] and gender[s] of persons one is disposed to sexually engage, and makes no reference to one’s own sex and genderComment: Dembroff provides an interesting alternative to the Kinsey scale as well as Edward Stein's dispositional account of sexual orientation. Pairs well with Stein's piece of the same name: 'What is Sexual Oreintation' in "The Mismatch of Desire: the science, theory, and ethics of sexual orientation". Can be used for debate on sexual and desire attraction.
Dembroff, Robin, Wodak, Daniel. He/She/They/Ze2018, Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy, 5(14): 371 - 406.-
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Rory Wilson
Abstract: In this paper, we defend two main claims. The first is a moderate claim: we have a negative duty to not use binary gender-specific pronouns he or she to refer to genderqueer individuals. We defend this with an argument by analogy. It was gravely wrong for Mark Latham to refer to Catherine McGregor, a transgender woman, using the pronoun he; we argue that such cases of misgendering are morally analogous to referring to Angel Haze, who identifies as genderqueer, as he or she. The second is a radical claim: we have a negative duty to not use any gender-specific pronouns to refer to anyone, regardless of their gender identity. We offer three arguments in favor of this claim (which appeal to concerns about inegalitarianism and risk, invasions of privacy, and reinforcing essentialist ideologies). We also show why the radical claim is compatible with the moderate claim. Before concluding, we examine common concerns about incorporating either they or a neologism such as ze as a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. These concerns, we argue, do not provide sufficient reason to reject either the moderate or radical claim.Comment: This text can be used as a companion piece to other texts on the metaphysics of gender or to introduce students to transgender / nonbinary identities. Dembroff and Wodak give a good overview of the importance of pronouns as well as the contemporary pronoun debate between they and ze for those with little to no prior background. This paper is good for debate over its radical claim.
Demetriou, Dan, Wingo, Ajume. The Ethics of Racist Monuments2018, In David Boonin (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy. Palgrave .-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Dan Demetriou
Abstract: In this chapter we focus on the debate over publicly-maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the US (chiefly regarding the over 700 monuments devoted to the Confederacy), but to some degree also in Britain and Commonwealth countries, especially South Africa (chiefly regarding monuments devoted to figures and events associated with colonialism and apartheid). After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist, and neutrally categorize removalist and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating, and that when concerns of civic sustainability are put on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments.Comment: Frames debates about racist monuments (e.g., Confederate or colonialist monuments), categorizes arguments for and against removal. Suitable for an intro-level course.
Devereaux, Mary. Protected space: Politics, censorship, and the arts1993, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (2):207-215.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: Anniversaries are appropriate times for reflection. On this, the 50th anniversary of the Ameri can Society for Aesthetics, I want to explore a complicated and confusing situation currently facing Anglo-American aesthetics. Works of art were once esteemed as objects of beauty. I In the past several years, however, artists have been accused of encouraging teenage suicide, urban rage, violence against women, and poisoning American culture. Museum directors have been indicted on obscenity charges, and artists and organizations receiving federal grants have been required to sign pledges that they will not pro mote, disseminate, or produce materials that may be considered obscene. Today in America, as in other times and places, artists face de mands for their art to conform to religious and moral criteria. These demands are not new, but they challenge the view that artistic expression falls under the protection of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.2Comment:
Dhanda, Meena. Philosophical Foundations of Anti-Casteism2020, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 120 (1): 71-96.-
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Added by: Suddha Guharoy and Andreas SorgerAbstract:
The paper begins from a working definition of caste as a contentious form of social belonging and a consideration of casteism as a form of inferiorization. It takes anti-casteism as an ideological critique aimed at unmasking the unethical operations of caste, drawing upon B. R. Ambedkar’s notion of caste as ‘graded inequality’. The politico-legal context of the unfinished trajectory of instituting protection against caste discrimination in Britain provides the backdrop for thinking through the philosophical foundations of anti-casteism. The peculiar religio-discursive aspect of ‘emergent vulnerability’ is noted, which explains the recent introduction of the trope of ‘institutional casteism’ used as a shield by deniers of caste against accusations of casteism. The language of protest historically introduced by anti-racists is thus usurped and inverted in a simulated language of anti-colonialism. It is suggested that the stymieing of the UK legislation on caste is an effect of collective hypocrisies, the refusal to acknowledge caste privilege, and the continuity of an agonistic intellectual inheritance, exemplified in the deep differences between Ambedkar and Gandhi in the Indian nationalist discourse on caste. The paper argues that for a modern anti-casteism to develop, at stake is the possibility of an ethical social solidarity. Following Ambedkar, this expansive solidarity can only be found through our willingness to subject received opinions and traditions to critical scrutiny. Since opposed groups ‘make sense’ of their worlds in ways that might generate collective hypocrisies of denial of caste effects, anti-casteism must be geared to expose the lie that caste as the system of graded inequality is benign and seamlessly self-perpetuating, when it is everywhere enforced through penalties for transgression of local caste norms with the complicity of the privileged castes. The ideal for modern anti-casteism is Maitri formed through praxis, eschewing birth-ascribed caste status and loyalties.
Comment (from this Blueprint): This is a brilliant introductory essay to the problem of casteism which plagues not only Indian societies in India, but also the diaspora abroad. The essay provides a nuanced perspective of how we must understand caste (both in its concept and its practice), introduces us to the 20th century debates which were ongoing alongside the freedom struggle against the Raj, and links the caste debate to the debates around it in contemporary British politics. It is a novel attempt to unearth the philosophical underpinnings of the movement against caste oppression. The timing of the essay seems apposite, given the current political situation in India and its impact in the politics of the countries where Indians constitute a sizeable population.
Diamond, Cora. Eating Meat and Eating People1978, Philosophy, 53 (206): 465.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: This paper is a response to a certain sort of argument defending the rights of animals. Part I is a brief explanation of the background and of the sort of argument I want to reject; Part II is an attempt to characterize those arguments: they contain fundamental confusions about moral relations between people and people and between people and animals. And Part III is an indication of what I think can still be said on-as it were-the animals' side.Comment: This text contains a useful overview of both Regan and Singer's classic arguments in favor of vegetarianism. Diamond introduces the concept of 'fellow creatures' as a useful way to discuss membership in the moral community. This text would be useful as a supplement to a unit on vegetarianism, speciesism, or animal rights.
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Davis, Angela. The Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves
1971, The Bancroft Library
Comment (from this Blueprint): Content warning: Details of cruelties of slavery, sexual assault. In this 1971 text written while incarcerated, Angela Davis makes an argument against the truth of a stereotype of the black enslaved woman. She argues that, contrary to popular belief, the stereotype of a black woman under slavery as the “matriarch” (i.e., dominating the men in their lives and colluding with the white slaver in black people’s oppression) is not true. Instead, she argues, appealing to empirical evidence and marxist theory, that black women’s position in the community of slaves uniquely positioned them to aid in liberation struggles. She argues it is empirically borne out that they in fact were crucial to both explicit and everyday resistance efforts.