The Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Race Reading Group‘s first Fall semester meeting will be:
Tuesday September 4th from 11:15 am to 12:45pm in room 5489 at The Graduate Center, CUNY.
The Graduate Center is located at 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10016.
We will read:
Emmalon Davis’ “On Epistemic Appropriation.”
Graduate Center Professor of Philosophy Linda Alcoff will read from and discuss her new book, Rape and Resistance, with interlocutors Rupal Oza and Alyson Cole.
Co-sponsored with the CUNY Graduate Center PhD Program in Philosophy, Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP), and The Feminist Press.
In split-brain patients, the cerebral hemispheres have been separated by severing the corpus collosum. These patients sometimes behave as if they have one mind and sometimes as if they have two. Do these patients have a single consciousness that is in some respects fragmented? Or does each hemisphere support a distinct experiencing subject with a separate mind?
Joseph LeDoux (Center for Neural Science, NYU)
Yaïr Pinto (Psychology, University of Amsterdam)
Elizabeth Schechter (Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis)
Elizabeth Schechter, author of the recent book Self-consciousness and ‘Split-brains’: The Mind’s I, will argue for the two-minds view. Yair Pinto, author of the recent article “The Split Brain Phenomenon Revisited: A Single Conscious Agent with Split Perception”, will argue for the one-mind view. Joseph Ledoux, author of the 1977 article “A Divided Mind: Observations on the Conscious Properties of the Separated Hemispheres”, will argue for an intermediate position.
I argue we can make progress in three contemporary debates about transnational feminisms by a) clarifying the normative commitments central to feminism and b) rethinking the role of normative ideals in transnational political practices. These debates concern the purported tension between taking seriously critiques of Western imperialism and retaining feminism’s status as a normative doctrine. Understanding feminism as opposition to sexist oppression unthethers feminism from commitments to controversial forms of individualism and antitraditionalism. Understanding transnational feminist praxis as a practice of nonideal justice-enhancement permits a universalist feminist position that is not monist about the endpoint of gender justice or the strategies that should be taken to achieve it.
The CUNY Graduate Center Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), the Center for the Humanities, and the Philosophy Program present an interdisciplinary conference on:
“#MeToo and Epistemic Injustice”
Over the past year, the #MeToo movement has forced into national consciousness what has long been an underground truth known by women: the horrifying pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault as routine everyday occurrences, largely unpunished. How can one explain the resistance there has traditionally been, as recently brought out in one high-profile case after another, to taking women’s testimony seriously? Using Miranda Fricker’s innovative concept of “epistemic injustice” as a focus—the refusal to give members of subordinated groups a fair hearing—this 2-day interdisciplinary conference will examine the problem in its multiple dimensions. Eighteen theorists from a wide variety of subjects—philosophy, political theory, media studies, history, gender and women’s studies, LGBTQ theory, Africana and Native American studies, law, and disability theory—will look from their distinctive perspectives at women’s vulnerability to sexual harassment and assault, and the ways in which it is complicated by class, race, nationality, sexuality, and disability.
October 5-6, 2018
Venues:
- Oct 5th – Roosevelt House, 47-49 East 65th St.
9:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. - Oct 6th – Skylight Room (9100), CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave.
10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Speakers:
- Linda Martín Alcoff, Philosophy, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Susan Brison, Philosophy, Dartmouth College
- Ann Cahill, Philosophy, Elon University
- Nirmala Erevelles, Disability Studies & Education, University of Alabama
- Karyn Freedman, Philosophy, University of Guelph
- Miranda Fricker, Philosophy, CUNY Grad Center
- Mishuana Goeman, Gender Studies & American Indian Studies, UCLA
- Suzanne Goldberg, Columbia Law School
- Raja Halwani, Liberal Arts, Art Institute of Chicago
- Alison Jaggar, Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
- Kate Manne, Philosophy, Cornell University
- Danielle McGuire, Independent Historian
- Sarah Clark Miller, Philosophy, Penn State University
- Rupal Oza, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Andrea Press, Media Studies & Sociology, University of Virginia
- Tricia Rose, Africana Studies, Brown University
- Dina Siddiqi, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College
- Shatema Threadcraft, Government, Dartmouth College
Conference organizers: Linda Martín Alcoff and Charles W. Mills
The CUNY Graduate Center Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), the Center for the Humanities, and the Philosophy Program present an interdisciplinary conference on:
“#MeToo and Epistemic Injustice”
Over the past year, the #MeToo movement has forced into national consciousness what has long been an underground truth known by women: the horrifying pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault as routine everyday occurrences, largely unpunished. How can one explain the resistance there has traditionally been, as recently brought out in one high-profile case after another, to taking women’s testimony seriously? Using Miranda Fricker’s innovative concept of “epistemic injustice” as a focus—the refusal to give members of subordinated groups a fair hearing—this 2-day interdisciplinary conference will examine the problem in its multiple dimensions. Eighteen theorists from a wide variety of subjects—philosophy, political theory, media studies, history, gender and women’s studies, LGBTQ theory, Africana and Native American studies, law, and disability theory—will look from their distinctive perspectives at women’s vulnerability to sexual harassment and assault, and the ways in which it is complicated by class, race, nationality, sexuality, and disability.
October 5-6, 2018
Venues:
- Oct 5th – Roosevelt House, 47-49 East 65th St.
9:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. - Oct 6th – Skylight Room (9100), CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave.
10:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Speakers:
- Linda Martín Alcoff, Philosophy, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Susan Brison, Philosophy, Dartmouth College
- Ann Cahill, Philosophy, Elon University
- Nirmala Erevelles, Disability Studies & Education, University of Alabama
- Karyn Freedman, Philosophy, University of Guelph
- Miranda Fricker, Philosophy, CUNY Grad Center
- Mishuana Goeman, Gender Studies & American Indian Studies, UCLA
- Suzanne Goldberg, Columbia Law School
- Raja Halwani, Liberal Arts, Art Institute of Chicago
- Alison Jaggar, Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
- Kate Manne, Philosophy, Cornell University
- Danielle McGuire, Independent Historian
- Sarah Clark Miller, Philosophy, Penn State University
- Rupal Oza, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College & CUNY Grad Center
- Andrea Press, Media Studies & Sociology, University of Virginia
- Tricia Rose, Africana Studies, Brown University
- Dina Siddiqi, Women & Gender Studies, Hunter College
- Shatema Threadcraft, Government, Dartmouth College
Conference organizers: Linda Martín Alcoff and Charles W. Mills
The paper argues that Spinoza is influenced by epicureanism. This is evident particularly in the conflict between authority—understood as the kind of figure that is impervious to argumentation—and the calculation of utility (phronesis) that is the precondition of action. This conflict is complex because in certain circumstances we may calculate that it is to our utility to allow a person in authority to calculate on our behalf.
The paper indicates, in addition, that the way Spinoza constructs the relation between authority and utility can inform our political predicament today. Spinoza may offer an alternative to populism as to why we have political figures who lack authority. And his thinking on utility could help us reconsider instrumentality in the neoliberal age.
Dimitris Vardoulakis is the debuty chair of Philosophy at Western Sydney University. He is the author of The Doppelgänger: Literature’s Philosophy (2010), Sovereignty and its Other: Toward the Dejustification of Violence (2013), Freedom from the Free Will: On Kafka’s Laughter (2016), and Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy (2018). He has also edited or co-edited numerous books, including Spinoza Now (2011) and Spinoza’s Authority (2018). He is the director of “Thinking Out Loud: The Sydney Lectures in Philosophy and Society,” and the co-editor of the book series “Incitements” (Edinburgh University Press).
Speakers:
Amanda Pustilnik, Professor of Law, University of Maryland
Tor Wager, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder
Moderators:
Federica Coppola, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University
Lan Li, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University
We will provide additional information as soon as possible.
Free and open to the public, but RSVP is required via Eventbrite. This event is part of the Seminars in Society and Neuroscience series.
In preparation for the next transnational feminist strike on March 8th, we will have a discussion about the new feminist wave with some of its protagonists and organizers from around the world and a conversation around Arruzza, Bhattacharya, Fraser, “Feminism for the 99%. A Manifesto” (Verso 2019).
Program:
4:00 p.m.: Welcome and Opening Remarks: William Milberg (Director of the Heilbroner Center for Capitalist Studies) and Cinzia Arruzza (NSSR)
4:15–6:00 p.m.: The New Feminist Wave
Speakers:
- Ximena Bustamante (IWS)
- Julia Cámara (National Coordination 8M, Spain)
- Luci Cavallero (Ni Una Menos, Argentina)
- Mayra Cotta De Souza (NSSR)
- Chair: Meg Beyer (IWS and NSSR)
6:00–6:15 p.m.: Break
6:15–8:00 p.m.: Feminism for the 99%. A Manifesto
Speakers:
- Cinzia Arruzza
- Tithi Bhattacharya
- Nancy Fraser
- Barbara Smith (founder of the Combahee River Collective)
- Chair: Michelle O’Brien (IWS)
Cosponsored by Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies (New School for Social Research) and International Women’s Strike
“Everyone is female”—this is the first of several “untenable claims” presented by Andrea Long Chu in her forthcoming book Females: A Concern (Verso, 2019). Drawing inspiration from Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto and her forgotten play Up Your Ass, this lecture in numbered theses whips through a variety of ugly objects (films, manifestos, performance art, psychoanalysis, porn, and the alt-right) to give a portrait of femaleness as a universal category of self-ablation against which all politics—even feminist politics—revolts.
Andrea Long Chu is a writer and critic completing her doctorate at New York University. Her writing has appeared, or will soon, in n+1, Boston Review, The New York Times, New York, Artforum, Bookforum, Chronicle of Higher Education, 4Columns, differences, Women & Performance, TSQ, and Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Her book Females: A Concern is forthcoming this year from Verso.
People in Support of Women in Philosophy is a group dedicated to the advancement of women and those who experience marginalization within the field of philosophy. Our group meets weekly to workshop papers, help members prepare for conference presentations and seminars, host guest speakers, and in general celebrate the work of our women and gender-non-conforming colleagues and mentors. Men are welcome and encouraged to take part as allies.