Sep
4
Tue
Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Race Reading Group @ CUNY Grad Center, rm 5489
Sep 4 @ 11:15 am – 12:45 pm

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.”

Sep
12
Wed
Book Salon: Linda Martín Alcoff, “Rape and Resistance” @ CUNY Grad Center, Skylight Room (Room 9100)
Sep 12 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

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.

Sep
20
Thu
Serene J. Khader on “Towards a Decolonial Feminist Universalism” @ Wolff Conference Room, D1103
Sep 20 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

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.

Oct
5
Fri
Interdisciplinary Conference on “#MeToo and Epistemic Injustice” @ Roosevelt House
Oct 5 all-day

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

Conference Poster

Oct
6
Sat
Interdisciplinary Conference on “#MeToo and Epistemic Injustice” @ Skylight Room (9100), CUNY Graduate Center
Oct 6 all-day

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

Conference Poster

Dec
19
Wed
Rethinking Pregnancy: Two Philosophical Perspectives with Suki Finn and Jennifer Scuro @ Martin E. Segal Theater
Dec 19 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Pregnancy is something that affects all of us: Many of us are, have been, or will be, pregnant; and each and every one of us is the result of a pregnancy. But there remain deep and important questions about pregnancy that are yet to be answered.

What is it to be pregnant?  How can we understand the complex relationship between the fetus and the mother?  What are the myths and assumptions that surround the phenomenon of pregnancy?  Should we challenge the medical and paternalistic interpretations of pregnancy?  Are our current dominant understandings of and cultural scripts about pregnancy harmful?  

Two philosophers discuss these issues regarding pregnancy through a phenomenological and metaphysical lens.

Suki Finn is a Doctor of Philosophy, working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Philosophy Department at the University of Southampton in the UK, on the ERC funded project ‘Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy‘. Suki is currently embarking on a Visiting Research Scholarship at New York University to continue her work on the metaphysics of pregnancy, and she also researches in the areas of metametaphysics and the philosophy of logic. Suki’s research has been published in various academic journals, books, and the popular online magazine Aeon. Her publications can be viewed on Academia or PhilPeople. Suki is also on the Executive Committee for the Society for Women in Philosophy UK, and on the Council for the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Jennifer Scuro, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of New Rochelle in New York and has been recently elected to the governing board of the Cultural Studies Association. She is the author of Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies(Lexington Books, Oct 2017) and The Pregnancy ≠ Childbearing Project: A Phenomenology of Miscarriage, (Rowman & Littlefield International, Feb 2017) a (autobio)graphic novel and feminist phenomenological analysis of pregnant embodiment, miscarriage and the labor of grief. The original tracework art from her graphic novel on miscarriage has been exhibited in several cities with the award-winning arts organization, The ART of Infertility.

This event is co-sponsored by the Gotham Philosophical Society and the CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences.  Admission is free and open to the public.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018 at 6:30pm, in the Martin E. Segal Theater

CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue (at 34th Street) New York, New York 10016 (212) 817-7944  cunyacademy@gc.cuny.edu

Feb
1
Fri
Finding the Way to Truth: Sources, History, and Impact of the Meditative Tradition @ Buell Hall, Columbia U
Feb 1 – Feb 2 all-day

How is the ancient exhortation to “know thyself” related to consolation, virtue, and the study of nature? How did the commitment to self-knowledge shift over the centuries in writings by Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and early modern natural philosophers? How did medieval women contribute to modern notions of self, self-knowledge, and knowledge of nature? This conference explores the meditative “reflective methodology” from its ancient roots, through medieval Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions to the so-called “new” methodologies of early modern science. Speakers include Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Pierre Force, Clémence Boulouque, Christia Mercer, and Pamela Smith.

Points of focus will be: (1) the relation between the ancient imperative to “know thyself” and medieval concerns to reflect on one’s self as a means to find ultimate truths; (2) the meditative genre as it developed from Augustine’s Confessions through Christian and Islamic spiritual exercises to late medieval Christian meditations and early modern kabbalist writings; (3) the continuity between medieval meditations and the reflective methodology of early modern science; and (4) the meditative genre’s afterlife in Freud, Foucault, Arendt, and contemporary science.

Conference co-sponsored by the Center for New Narratives in Philosophy, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, the Departments of Philosophy, French, English and Comparative Literature and the Maison Française

To download a PDF about this event click here.

Feb
4
Mon
Feminism for the 99% and the New Feminist Wave @ Wolff Conference Room, D1103
Feb 4 @ 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm

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

Feb
15
Fri
Political Theology Today as Critical Theory of the Contemporary: Reason, Religion, Humanism @ Deutsches Haus, NYU
Feb 15 – Feb 17 all-day
Mar
14
Thu
Andrea Long Chu “Females: A Concern “ @ Wolff Conference Room, D1103
Mar 14 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

“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+1Boston ReviewThe New York TimesNew YorkArtforumBookforumChronicle of Higher Education4ColumnsdifferencesWomen & PerformanceTSQ, 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.