The "Feminist Theory Reader" provides a revolutionary new approach to anthologizing the important works in feminist theory by incorporating the voices of women ...

In this rewarding book, Laurie A. Finke challenges assumptions about gender, the self, and the text which underlie fundamental constructs of contemporary feminist theory. She maintains that some of the key concepts structuring feminist literary criticism need to be reexamined within both their historical context and the larger framework of current theory concerning language, representation, subjectivity, and value.

Feminist theory is a central strand of cultural studies. This book explores the history of feminist cultural studies from the early work of Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, through the 1970s Women's Liberation Movement. It also provides a comprehensive introduction to the contemporary key approaches, theories and debates of feminist theory within cultural studies, offering a major re-mapping of the field. It will be an essential text for students taking courses within both (...) cultural studies and women's studies departments. (shrink)

Despite decades of activism, resistance, and education, both feminists and gender rebels continue to experience personal, political, institutional, and cultural resistance to rights, recognition, and respect. In the face of these inequalities and disparities, Transgressing Feminist Theory and Discourse seeks to engage with, and disrupt the long-standing debates, unquestioned conceptual formations, and taboo topics in contemporary feminist studies. The first half of the book challenges key concepts and theories related to feminist scholarship by advocating new approaches for (...) theorizing interdisciplinarity, intersectionality, critical race theory, trans studies, and genetics. The second half of the book offers feminist critiques or explorations of timely topics such as the 2017 Women's March and Donald Trump's election as well as non-Western perspectives of family and the absence of women's perspectives in healthcare. Contributors comprise of leading scholars and activists from disciplines including gender and sexuality studies, African American studies, communication studies, sociology, political science, and media. Transgressing Feminist Theory and Discourse is a compelling examination of some of the most high-profile feminist issues today. It hopes to infuse future and current debates and conversations around feminism and feminist theory with intersectional, imaginative, provocative, and evocative ideas, inspiring bold cross-fertilizations of concepts, principles, and practices. (shrink)

A feminist theory of content allows us to appreciate the nuanced role that historical and socio-cultural forces play in shaping the content of many of our terms. In this chapter, Maitra first shows how the classic articulation of externalism in literature is ineffective for feminist purposes. She then identifies two important ingredients that a feminist theory of content requires, namely, accounts of how the social and physical world shape content and what is required to transform that content. (...) The final part of her argument develops the first approximation of a feminist theory of content drawing from Ruth Millikan’s “consumer” account of meaning and mental representation. Using as an example José Jorge Mendoza’s analysis of how the history of U. S. immigration and citizenship law has shaped the term ‘whiteness,’ this chapter argues that feminist theorizing and activism stand to benefit from the possibility of a feminist theory of mental content that makes explicit how the contents of many terms with social and political import are determined and held stable. (shrink)

Bonnie Honig invigorates debate over the politics of refusal by insisting that withdrawal from unjust political systems be matched with collective action to change them. Historical and fictional characters from Muhammad Ali to the Bacchants of ancient Greek tragedy teach us how to turn rejection into transformative efforts toward self-governance.

This book presents the current feminist critique of science and the philosophy of science in such a way that students of philosophy of science, philosophers, feminist theorists, and scientists will find the material accessible and intellectually rigorous.Contemporary feminist debate, as well as the debate brought on by the radical critics of science, assumes—incorrectly—that certain movements in philosophy of science and science-driven theory are understood in their dynamics as well as in their details. All too often, labels such (...) as “Kuhnian” or “positivistic” are taken for granted, and much of the contemporary postmodern or post-structuralist feminist theory that sets out to criticize science does little to alleviate the reader’s lack of knowledge with regard to such movements.Unlike other texts, Philosophies of Science: Feminist Theories provides a student-oriented framework so that, for example, positivism is given a thorough grounding before the feminist critique of such epistemological theory is given. Other movements discussed include the Kuhnian turn, sociology of science, and the radical critique of science. Feminist theory and critique are interwoven throughout, with one chapter devoted to feminist thought, which includes the work of such thinkers as Longino, Hararway, Hubbard, Nelson, Harding, and Keller. (shrink)

This authoritative and lively exploration of the theories of contemporary feminism covers all the major variants of feminist political thought from the "traditional" schools of the women's movement-particularly radical, liberal, and socialist-to today's postmodern texts. Feminist Theory Today examines the epistemological challenge from critical legal theory and postmodernist thought; the divergences within, as well as between, feminist schools; and the protests from women marginalized by the feminist movement, including those who are lesbian and those who are (...) black. It also interrogates the dialectic equality and difference and reconceptualizes this pervasive tenet of feminist thought. Author Judith Evans documents the changes in socialist feminism from its revolutionary origins to its current focus on modifying liberal democratic forms. Students and teachers of women's studies, sociology, and political theory will find this an authoritative and lively exploration of the theories of contemporary feminism. It is also essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why the women's movement is as it is today. (shrink)

In a recent essay — “How Can Feminist Theories of Evidence Assist Clinical Reasoning and Decision-making?” — Maya Goldenberg discusses criticisms of evidence-based medicine (or EBM) (Goldenberg 2013). She is particularly interested in those criticisms that make use of an epistemic appeal to the underdetermination of theory by evidence...

"Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference" looks at the question of difference across the full spectrum of feminist theory from liberal, radical, lesbian ...

Feminist Theory After Deleuze addresses the encounter between one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, and one of its most significant political and intellectual movements, feminism. Feminist theory is a broad, contradictory, and still evolving school of thought. This book introduces the key movements within feminist theory, engaging with both Anglo-American and French feminism, as well as important strains of feminist thought that have originated in Australia and other parts of Europe. Mapping both (...) the feminist critique of Deleuze's work and the ways in which it has brought vitality to feminist theory, this book brings Deleuze into dialogue with significant thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir, Rosi Braidotti, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz and Luce Irigaray. It takes key terms in feminist theory such as, 'difference', 'gender', 'bodies', 'desire' and 'politics' and approaches them from a Deleuzian perspective. (shrink)

In this book, as feminist, Marxist, postcolonial, and queer scholars, we argue that social reproduction is foundational to comprehending urbanization and urban transformations by contributing to the feminist project of writing social reproduction and everyday life into urban theory." Social reproduction is, of course, not just an analytical framing but also an organising call for feminist scholars and our contention is that if we want an urban theory for our time, it needs to be feminist. Feminism (...) is not simply a 'discipline,' 'theory', or 'ideology', but a worldview, a lived praxis that provides a platform for engaged analysis. The book's origins lie in our belief in the necessity of feminist urban knowledge production, a belief further endorsed by our prior critical engagement with the analytical framework of planetary urbanization and our collective ruminations during and post this engagement on the nature of urban theory (Reddy 2018; Ruddick et al. 2018). Not least the considerable response to the theme issue of Society and Space (Peake et al. 2018) showed us that there was an audience desirous of troubling the hegemony of urban theory. Moreover, our approach of working as a team across hierarchies of junior and senior scholars, generations, genders, sexualities, institutions, and disciplines-a praxis we refer to as "the intergenerational social reproductive labor of knowledge production" (Peake et al. 2018, p. 377)-had been fruitful and positive and we wanted it to continue. It was as much a pedagogical experience of reading and writing together, and sharing meals, as it was an exploration of our places within the academy and an intellectual foray into urban theory. And while Roza Tchoukaleyska left for Newfoundland, Elsa Koleth, a new post-doctoral fellow at the City Institute at York University, joined us. (shrink)

The book argues that the category of mother is distinct from the category of woman and that many of the problems mothers face-socially, economically, politically, culturally, and psychologically-are specific to women's work and identity as mothers. Indeed, mothers, arguably more so than women in general, remain disempowered despite forty years of feminism. Mothers, thus, need a feminism of their own, one that positions mothers' concerns as the starting point for a theory and politic of empowerment. O'Reilly terms this new mode (...) of feminism matricentic feminism and the book explores how it is represented and experienced in theory, activism, and practice. The chapter on maternal theory examines the central theoretical concepts of maternal scholarship to include Adrienne Rich's distinction between mothering and motherhood, Sara Ruddick's model of maternal thinking and practice and Patricia Hill Collins' concept of othermothering while the chapter on activism considers the 21st century motherhood movement. Feminist mothering is likewise examined as the specific practice of matricentric feminism and this chapter discusses varies theories and strategies on and for maternal empowerment. Matricentric feminism is also examined in relation to the larger field of Feminist Theory and Women's Studies; here O'Reilly persuasively shows how matricentric feminism has been marginalized in feminist scholarship and considers the reasons for such exclusion and how such may be challenged and changed. (shrink)

In this lively and accessible book Lorraine Code addresses one of the most controversial questions in contemporary theory of knowledge, a question of fundamental concern for feminist theory as well: Is the sex of the knower epistemologically significant? Responding in the affirmative, Code offers a radical alterantive to mainstream philosophy's terms for what counts as knowledge and how it is to be evaluated. Code first reviews the literature of established epistemologies and unmasks the prevailing assumption in Anglo-American philosophy that (...) "the knower" is a value-free and ideologically neutral abstraction. Approaching knowledge as a social construct produced and validated through critical dialogue, she defines the knower in light of a conception of subjectivity based on a personal relational model. Code maps out the relevance of the particular people involved in knowing: their historical specificity, the kinds of relationships they have, the effects of social position and power on those relationships, and the ways in which knowledge can change both knower and known. In an exploration of the politics of knowledge that mainstream epistemologies sustain, she examines such issues as the function of knowledge in shaping institutions and the unequal distribution of cognitive resources. What Can She Know? will raise the level of debate concerning epistemological issues among philosophers, political and social scientists, and anyone interested in feminist theory. (shrink)

Intersex—the fact of bodies neither typically male nor female, together with the grim history of its medical management—was a topic for feminist theory before there was such a thing as intersex activism. Indeed, critical academic scholarship about intersex supported the consciousness raising that made an intersex activist movement possible. Activist engagement, in turn, has expanded the understanding of the theorists whose work is responsive to that activism. Central to the thinking about intersex are the questions of identity and its (...) limits that are an important focus of the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, whose narrative suggests she had a condition associated with intersex. While her work largely predates intersex activism, it powerfully encapsulates the tensions displayed in contests over identity that have become central over the last 15 years, and furthermore offers insight into the challenges that lie ahead. (shrink)

This chapter suggests an approach to decolonial feminism drawing from Latina feminist theory and practice. Rejecting an imperial feminism involves something else besides “going local”: it requires a genuine reorientation of feminist theory toward the everyday. This chapter considers how this affects the central debates about gender identities and gender liberation. How might we approach gender questions in the context of learning from, rather than teaching, lo cotidiano of the impoverished? This would counter the popular accounts of identity (...) formation that view it as necessarily involving either authoritarianism from above, or irrationality from below. The chapter then explores the late theologian Ada-María Isasi-Díaz’s development of a mujerista theology, which adapted certain aspects of liberation theology’s “preference for the poor” to US Latinas. (shrink)

Although a rich tradition of feminist critiques of science exists, it is often difficult for feminists who are scientists to bridge these critiques with practical transformations in scientific knowledge production. In this paper, I go beyond the general bases of feminist critiques of science by using feminist theory in science to illustrate how a practical transformation in methodology can change molecular biology based research in the reproductive sciences.

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory provides an overview of the analytical frameworks and theoretical concepts feminist theorists have developed to challenge established knowledge. Leading feminist theorists, from around the globe, provide in-depth explorations of a diverse array of subject areas, capturing a plurality of approaches. The Handbook raises new questions, brings new evidence, and poses significant challenges across the spectrum of academic disciplines, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of feminist theory.

Feminist philosophy, along with, and as a part of, feminist thought more generally, is rapidly developing and will, and rightly, become an increasing force in our cultural life. The essays in this rich and varied volume contribute to this. They have a cluster of salient features in common that is generally characteristic of feminist philosophy and contrasts markedly with most other philosophy as presently practiced. I refer here to the fact that feminist philosophy is more receptive (...) than more traditional modes of philosophizing to currents of thought coming from a very considerable number of often quite different sources, less defensively adversarial and more tolerant of a lack of closure in philosophical thought. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy, along with, and as a part of, feminist thought more generally, is rapidly developing and will, and rightly, become an increasing force in our cultural life. The essays in this rich and varied volume contribute to this. They have a cluster of salient features in common that is generally characteristic of feminist philosophy and contrasts markedly with most other philosophy as presently practiced. I refer here to the fact that feminist philosophy is more receptive (...) than more traditional modes of philosophizing to currents of thought coming from a very considerable number of often quite different sources, less defensively adversarial and more tolerant of a lack of closure in philosophical thought. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers need a theory of distrust that can make sense of the institutional distrust that is common among people who face systemic oppression. Our purpose in this chapter is to lay the groundwork for such a theory. Our strategy is to use feminist insights about institutional distrust to critique the most general and well-developed theory of distrust in philosophy—Katherine Hawley’s commitment account—and to learn from this exercise about what a feminist theory of distrust should be like. (...) Though not designed to explain institutional distrust as we understand it, Hawley’s theory is meant to apply to people’s relationships with institutional representatives as well as to friendships or intimate relationships whose contours are shaped by informal institutional structures. It should therefore be able to explain the institutional distrust that is prevalent among oppressed people. However, we argue that it falls short in this regard. The chapter ends with discussion about what our critique suggests about future directions for the feminist philosophy of distrust. (shrink)

Contemporary feminist theory is at an impasse: the project of reformulating concepts of self and social identity is thwarted by an association between identity and oppression and victimhood. In Sacrificial Logics, Allison Weir proposes a way out of this impasse through a concept of identity which depends on accepting difference. Weir argues that the equation of identity with repression and domination links "relational" feminists like Nancy Chodorow, who equate self-identity with the repression of connection to others, and poststructuralist feminists (...) like Judith Butler, who view any identity as a repression of nonidentity and difference. Through readings of Chodorow, Butler, Jessica Benjamin, Luce Irigaray, Jacqueline Rose and Julia Kristeva, Weir analyzes the relation of theories of self-identity to theories of women's identity, social identity, the identity of meaning in language and feminist solidarity. Drawing particularly on the work of Julia Kristeva, she argues for a reformulation of self-identity as a capacity to participate in a social world, and sketches a model of a self-identity which depends on a capacity to accept nonidentity, difference and connections to others. (shrink)

This book evaluates the major debates around which the discipline of international relations has developed in the light of contemporary feminist theories. The three debates (realist versus idealist, scientific versus traditional, modernist versus postmodernist) have been subject to feminist theorising since the earliest days of known feminist activities, with the current emphasis on feminist, empiricist standpoint and postmodernist ways of knowing. Christine Sylvester shows how feminist theorising could have affected our understanding of international relations had (...) it been included in the three debates. She elaborates a feminist method of empathetically cooperative conversation which challenges the identity politics of IR, and illustrates that method with reference to the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp and the efforts of Zimbabwean women to negotiate international funding for their local producer cooperatives. (shrink)

Reading Feminist Theory: From Modernity to Postmodernity interweaves classical and contemporary writings from the social sciences and the humanities to represent feminist thought from the late eighteenth century to the present. Editors Susan Archer Mann and Ashly Suzanne Patterson pay close attention to the multiplicity and diversity of feminist voices, visions, and vantage points by race, class, gender, sexuality, and global location. Along with more conventional forms of theorizing, this anthology points to multiple sites of theory production--both (...) inside and outside of the academy--and includes personal narratives, poems, short stories, zines, and even music lyrics. Offering a truly global perspective, the book devotes three chapters and more than thirty readings to the topics of colonialism, imperialism and globalization. It also provides extensive coverage of third-wave feminism, poststructuralism, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and transnational feminisms. (shrink)

Feminist Theory and Pop Culture (Second Edition) synthesizes feminist theory with modern portrayals of gender in media culture. This updated text provides comprehensive and interdisciplinary scholarship focused on topics related to: - Historical examination of feminist theory - Application of feminist research methods - Feminist theoretical perspectives such as the male gaze, feminist standpoint theory, Black feminist thought, queer theory, masculinity theory, theories of feminist activism, and postfeminism. - Contributor chapters cover a (...) range of topics from Western perspectives on belly dance to television shows such as Girls, Scandal, and Orange is the New Black. - Feminist theory and the wave of feminism, including a discussion of the fourth wave - Pedagogical features - Suggestions for further reading and discussion questions for classroom use Feminist Theory and Pop Culture was designed for classroom use and has been written with an eye toward engaging students in discussion. The book's polished perspective on feminist theory juxtaposes popular culture with theoretical perspectives which have served as a foundation for the study of gender. This interdisciplinary text can serve as a primary or supplemental reading. (shrink)

Do men and women perceive cybercrime types differently? This article draws on the distinction between socio-economic and psychosocial cybercrime proposed by Lazarus (2019) to investigate whether men and women hold different perceptions of digital crimes across these two dimensions. Informed by the synergy between feminist theory and the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework (TCF), our survey examined respondents’ differential perceptions of socio-economic cybercrime (online fraud) and psychosocial cybercrime (cyberbullying, revenge porn, cyberstalking, online harassment) among men and women in the United Kingdom. (...) The results revealed that women considered psychosocial cybercrime worse than men. Conversely, we found no differences between men and women with regard to socio-economic cybercrime. The article concludes that psychosocial cybercrimes are more gendered than socio-economic cybercrime, suggesting problems with the meaning of ‘cyber-enabled crimes’, and substantiating the synergy between the TCF and feminist perspectives. (shrink)

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Traditionally inscribed at the margins of moral and political theory, it is time, after centuries of ongoing debates originated and grounded in Modernity’s values, to reflect on the status of Feminist Theory. Defined basically as critical theory —apostille of the mainstream theory—, feminist thought can be defined as theory tout court, in so far as the egalitarian discourses are central parts of moral and political thought and feminism is philosophical. This paper addresses the ambivalent relation between feminist (...) theory and moral-political theory with a critical view that upholds an integral vision that incorporates the dimension of care into the male-stream, and takes into account gender differences as well as the division between the public and private spheres. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Feminist ethical theory Application of ethical theories Feminist research methods Application of research methods Conclusion.

This article explores some of the most significant questions in feminist epistemology: how do academics demarcate what constitutes ‘proper’ academic knowledge? And to what extent is feminist theory and research recognised as such? I draw on material from an ethnographic study of academia in Portugal to examine the claims that non-feminist scholars make in classrooms and conferences about the epistemic status of feminist scholarship. I observed that feminist work was very commonly described as capable of (...) generating credible and valuable knowledge, but only in some instances and in limited ways. I present examples of these adversative claims (i.e. propositions that express opposition or discrepancy through a ‘but’ or equivalent adversative conjunction) and analyse their structure, content and uses of caricature and humour, showing how epistemic boundaries are drawn in them and how feminist scholarship is positioned in relation to those boundaries. I argue that this boundary-work produces a representation of feminist scholarship as being located partly within, and partly outside, the realm of proper knowledge, a move which I designate as an epistemic splitting of that scholarship. I suggest that this splitting enables and legitimates a selective engagement with feminist work, because it provides non-feminist scholars with a recognised epistemological rationale for taking into account the feminist insights which broadly fit mainstream frameworks, while simultaneously rejecting as epistemologically unsound the feminist critiques of those frameworks. (shrink)

Black feminist theory has shown how respectability politics shape cultural discourses about African American women's sexuality. Responding to ‘silent’ depictions resulting from racial uplift strategies among turn-of-the-century middle-class black women, subsequent work theorises alternative discourses that portray a desiring and agentic black female sexual subject. Locating these alternative discourses in a ‘politics of irreverence’, I argue that respectability/irreverence oppositional logic narrowly frames theorising of black female sexuality. Although recent work emphasises dialectical – rather than oppositional – dynamics, this analytic (...) approach is unevenly applied. Binary frameworks continue to shape analyses of women's rap. Drawing upon lyrics of rappers Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown, I highlight three discursive strategies whereby women rappers render the respectability/irreverence binary problematic: (1) using irreverence to claim respectability, (2) ‘claiming both’ or, embracing contradiction, and (3) beating to the punch. This analysis shows how dialectical approaches account for potential ‘third spaces’ where more complex representational politics are possible. (shrink)

Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology addresses seven philosophically significant questions regarding feminism, its central concepts of sex and gender, and the project of centering women’s experience. Topics include the nature of sexist oppression, the sex/gender distinction, how gender-based norms influence conceptions of rationality, knowledge, and scientific objectivity, feminist ethics, feminst perspectives on self and autonomy, whether there exist distinct feminine moral perspectives, and what would comprise true liberation. Features an introductory overview illustrating the development of feminism as a (...) philosophical movement Contains both classic and contemporary sources of feminist thought, including selections by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Simone de Beauvior, Kate Millett, bell hooks, Marilyn Frye, Martha Nussbaum, Louise Antony, Sally Haslanger, Helen Longino, Marilyn Friedman, Catharine MacKinnon, and Drucilla Cornell. (shrink)

This first major study of feminist theory, which has been revised and completely reset, now takes the reader into the twenty-first century.

In activist circles feminist political thought is often viewed as abstract because it does not help activists make the kinds of arguments that are generally effective with donors and policy makers. The feminist political philosopher's focus on how we know and what counts as knowledge is a large step away from the terrain in which activists make their arguments to donors. Yet, philosophical reflection on the relations between power and knowledge can make a significant contribution to women's human (...) rights work in the area of evaluation. Feminist political philosophy can offer guidelines for how to evaluate the work of women's human rights organizations and their funders in light of the social, political, and economic conditions that render their work necessary and difficult. This article offers 1) an account of the difficulty in showing the impact of social change activism using conventional modes of measurement, particularly those that focus on first order effects, 2) feminist theoretical insights into the interrelatedness of global gender injustices that may help us develop better benchmarks of evaluation for women's human rights programming, and 3) a sketch of how to approach the evaluation of organizations and donors who seek to support global gender justice. (shrink)

Progress -- Loss -- Return -- Amenability -- Citation tactics -- Affective subjects.

Today intersectionality has expanded from being primarily a metaphor within structuralist feminist research to an all-encompassing theory. This article discusses this increasing dedication to intersectionality in European feminist research. How come intersectionality has developed into a signifier for ‘good feminist research’ at this particular point in time? Drawing on poststructuralist and postcolonial theory the authors examine key articles on intersectionality as well as special issues devoted to the concept. They interrogate the conflicts and meaning making processes as (...) well as the genealogies of the concept. Thus, the epistemology and ontology behind the ‘intersectional turn’ in feminist theory is the main concern here. The authors argue that the lack of ontological discussions has lead to its very popularity. Intersectionality promises almost everything: to provide complexity, overcome divisions and to serve as a critical tool. However, the expansion of the scope of intersectionality has created a consensus that conceals fruitful and necessary conflicts within feminism. (shrink)

Details developments in feminist theory since 1970, with chapters on aspects such as feminist social theory, political theory, and jurisprudence, black feminisms, post-colonial feminist theory, lesbian theory, and feminist linguistic theories. Other topics include psychoanalytic feminist theory, postmodernism and feminism, feminist literary theory, feminist media and film theory, and women's studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Accounts of mothering have both contributed to feminist theory's development and depended on certain of its central concepts. Some of its critics, however, argue that feminist theory is undermined by the problems of exclusion and essentialism. Here I distinguish between these two problems and consider their implications for questions about mothering. I conclude that exclusion and essentialism do not present insurmountable obstacles to theorizing motherhood, but do suggest new directions for such theorizing.

Power is clearly a crucial concept for feminist theory. Insofar as feminists are interested in analyzing power, it is because they have an interest in understanding, critiquing, and ultimately challenging the multiple array of unjust power relations affecting women in contemporary Western societies, including sexism, racism, heterosexism, and class oppression. In "The Power of Feminist Theory," Amy Allen diagnoses the inadequacies of previous feminist conceptions of power, and draws on the work of a diverse group of theorists (...) of power, including Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Hannah Arendt, in order to construct a new feminist conception of power. The conception of power developed in this book enables readers to theorize domination, resistance, and solidarity, and, perhaps more importantly, to do so in a way that illuminates the interrelatedness of these three modalities of power. (shrink)

After a time dominated by nature-phobia, a naturalistic turn is emerging within feminist theory. Welcoming this new theoretical embrace of nature and sympathising with its insistence that nature is not feminism’s enemy, this article nevertheless points to some problematic features of this turn. Focusing on Elizabeth Grosz’s postmodernist readings of Charles Darwin, I suggest that their emphasis of nature’s dynamic, indeterminate and enabling qualities both implies a politically unmotivated glorification of the dynamic and unruly, and as such obscures the (...) important fact that nature also works as a constraining factor on societies. I demonstrate, from the point of view of a Marxist-realist perspective, why an acknowledgement of nature’s limiting force is crucial for the coherence of any theoretical account of the workings of social systems. The article also addresses the feminist imperative to transcend the dualism between nature and culture, and shows how the concept of emergence offers a solution to dilemmas that tend to appear in connection to such efforts of transcendence. (shrink)

Our paper was written to highlight the need for mitigating vulnerability in COVID-19 tracing technology. As the pandemic was unravelling in mid 2020 and infection rates were rising steeply across the globe, we were following the news on emerging response measures and their social impact. We were alarmed by media reports regarding racial profiling and criminalization related to the implementation of physical distancing measures. Media reports documenting the fining of predominantly Black and Hispanic people in New York City, the closures (...) of Roma settlements in Spain, Slovakia, or Romania, or the disproportionate patrolling of migrant neighborhoods in Sydney, Australia, made it obvious that... (shrink)

This article presents conceptual bridges that exist between the philosophy of G.W.F Hegel and a feminist ethics of care. To do so, it engages with Slavoj Žižek’s contemporary reading of Hegel in concert with existing feminist interpretations of Hegel’s thought. The goal of doing so is to demonstrate how both Žižek and a selection of critical feminist thinkers interpret Hegel’s perspective on the nature of subjectivity, intersubjective relations and the relationship between the subject and the world it (...) inhabits, in a way that can further our thinking on the feminist ethics of care as a relational and contextualist ethics that foregrounds vulnerability as a condition of existence. These readings of Hegel highlight the radical contingency of human subjectivity, as well as the relationship between human subjectivity and the external world, in a way that is compatible with the feminist ethics of care’s emphasis on the particularity, fluidity, and interdependency of human relationships. I argue that this confrontation between care ethics and mainstream philosophy is valuable because it offers mutual contributions to both care ethics as a moral and political theory and the philosophy of Hegel and Žižek. (shrink)

This comprehensive reader represents the history, intellectual breadth and diversity of feminist theory.

What happens when well-defined disciplines meet or are confronted with transdisciplinary discourses and concepts, where transdisciplinary concepts are analytical tools rather than specifications of a field of objects or a class of entities? Or, if disciplines reject transdisciplinary discourses and concepts as having no part to play in their practice, why do they so reject them? This essay addresses these questions through a discussion of the relationship between philosophy – the most tightly policed discipline in the humanities – and what (...) I will argue is the emblematically transdisciplinary practice of feminist theory, via a discussion of interdisciplinarity and related terms in gender studies. It argues that the tendency of philosophy to reject feminist theory in fact correctly intuited that the two defining features of feminist theory – its constitutive tie to a political agenda for social change and the transdisciplinary character of many of its central concepts – are indeed at odds with, and pose a threat to, the traditional insularity of the discipline of philosophy. It argues, further, that feminist theory operates with what we should now recognise as a set of transdisciplinary concepts – including, sex, gender, woman, sexuality and sexual difference – and that the use of these concepts in feminist philosophy has been the most far-reaching continuation in the late 20th/early 21st centuries of the critique of philosophy initiated by Marx and pursued by ‘critical theory’. This puts feminist philosophy in a difficult position: its transdisciplinary aspects open it up to an unavoidable contradiction. Nonetheless, this is a contradiction that can and must be endured and made productive. In order to draw out the specificity of the concept of transdisciplinarity at issue the essay begins with a discussion of attempts to define inter- and transdisciplinarity, particularly in gender studies. Arguing for the transdisciplinary origin of the concept of gender, it then suggests one way of understanding its function as a critical concept, before making explicit how this leads to the historical antagonism between traditional philosophy and the critical, transdisciplinary concept of gender and with feminist theory more generally. (shrink)