Day: May 7, 2012
Midwest SWIP cfp
(Not on their website yet, will link when it is)
Miami University, Oxford Ohio November 9-11
Submission Deadline: July 15
The Midwest Division of the Society for Women in Philosophy invites papers in all areas of feminist philosophy, theory, and praxis. Papers ranging from political, ethical and social theory, to epistemology, mind and metaphysics are welcome. Work that interrogates the intersections between race, gender, ability and class is particularly encouraged.
In celebration of Adrienne Rich’s life and work, Midwest SWIP extends a special request for work that considers the aesthetic as a site of feminist resistance. On this topic we invite traditional papers as well as performances that engage feminist theory and praxis. Interdisciplinary work is welcomed, particularly that which challenges the disciplinary practice of philosophy and the theory/practice distinction.
Please submit papers, proposals for panels, and panels to midwestswip2012@gmail.com.
Attending Midwest SWIP: Midwest SWIP endeavors to make attendance affordable for all participants by requiring no attendance fees and providing snacks throughout the conference. Please contact Gaile Pohlhaus at pohlhag@muohio.edu to request local housing and we will solicit community member hosts. Travel grants ($70) are available on a first come, first served basis though priority will be given to students, the unemployed and the underemployed. You need not be a member of SWIP to participate in the conference, to request local housing, or to request a travel grant.
“Reading between the Lines”
Games with Words is a web-based laboratory run by a grad student at Harvard. With some of the games one gets feedback, and with some not. I’ve just taken one, The Communication Game. One is told:
Words are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding what someone says. Much is left unsaid.
Read sentences and try to figure out what they mean. How good are you at reading between the lines?.
It is very short, and the results are interesting. You may even want to write to the experimenter to comment. In any case, I suspect a gaggle of philosophers will change the statistics some.
Do try it. Considering telling us your score. And I’d love to know what you think “the well known theory” referred to at the end is. Do you think you were reading between the lines?
The Epistemology Women-Friendliness Challenge
In the past few months, I have heard several epistemologists make remarks about epistemology’s relative lack of friendliness to women (in comparison with philosophy’s other subfields). Perhaps the most often-cited evidence was the ratio of men to women in epistemology, compared to the ratios in other subfields of philosophy; salient high-profile epistemology conferences at which most or all of the invited speakers are men; several high-profile epistemology volumes at which most or all of the invited contributions are from men; and the relative lack of women epistemologists on many epistemology syllabi. I have not done any investigations to confirm any of these allegations (and I have not compared epistemology to other subfields). Still, it seems to me that we have a problem so long as these are the impressions that are had by prominent epistemologists. (I also cannot say that my experiences in epistemology give me confidence that these claims are wholly inaccurate.)
I do not post this to cast aspersions or to accuse. Rather, in the spirit of the undergraduate women students at Northwestern who recently started the WiPhi (“Women into Philosophy”) group here in the NU Philosophy Department, I post this to challenge the epistemology community. With these excellent undergraduates (and the many, many others like them all over the world) in mind, I challenge us to see whether, within a period of a few years, we might change our practices in such a way that, far from being seen as not particularly women-friendly, epistemology will be, and will come to be seen as, one of the most women-friendly subdisciplines within philosophy. (Of course, this should be part of an effort to make philosophy as an entire discipline more women-friendly, as well as more friendly to all underrepresented groups; but perhaps this smaller and more focused effort can help these larger aims.
Let’s have more of these!! (Great idea, Sandy.)
And let’s also think of ways to make our areas of philosophy more inclusive– not just of women but also of people of colour, disabled people and other groups that are underrepresented.
Hypatia Special Issue, “Interstices: Women of Color Feminist Philosophy”
August 15, 2012 submission deadline
Volume 29, Number 1, Winter 2014
Guest Editors: Kristie Dotson and Donna-Dale Marcano
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy seeks papers for a special issue on women of color feminist philosophy. We welcome feminist philosophical scholarship with the aim of interrogating and/or demonstrating work created within the terrain of these three terms- women of color, feminist, philosophy. (Read the complete cfp here, halfway down the page.)
What a philosopher looks like
Inspired by the the success of the blog This is What a Scientist Looks Like, we’re launching a parallel effort of our own. Ladies, gentlemen, and non-gender-binaries, I give you: This is What a Philosopher Looks Like.
Our hope is that this blog will be a small part of the effort to undermine stereotypes about the kinds of people who can be philosophers. And with any luck, it will become a resource to show to students.
But for this to work, we need your help. Send us your photos! We want photos of all ages, genders, races. . .you get the idea. If you’re a philosopher, we’d love to have a photo of you.
(Special thanks to reader J for suggesting this venture to us!)
Feminist Philosophers 