Gender, Race and Philosophy: The Blog

Bar On asks "Should We Occupy?"

We invite discussion of Bat-Ami Bar On's paper "Should We Occupy?"

Abstract:

In this essay I ask what is the responsibility of philosophy graduate programs, philosophy faculty, and professional organizations of academic philosophers toward individuals who are interested in pursuing a philosophy Ph.D.. I am especially concerned about responsibilities toward members of groups that are underrepresented in philosophy as an academic discipline who are being actively recruited into the pool of applicants to Ph. D. programs. I ask my questions against a background of bad news about the state of philosophy as an academic profession and the academic humanities more generally, and a reasonable anticipation that there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and so the job prospects of philosophy Ph.D. aspirants are not good. Because of endemic academic inequalities, philosophy Ph.D. aspirants who are members of groups that are currently underrepresented in philosophy are likely to be even worse off than others.

Comments may be anonymous, but please be respectful.  We urge people to read the essay before commenting.

If you have trouble with the link above, you may also download it here.

CFA: Justice and the Social Ontology of Race

FINAL Call for Abstracts- Extended to 9/15:

The North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) invites submissions for its group session at the Pacific APA, 2016. The theme of our session will be:

“Justice and the Social Ontology of Race”

Proposals on topics intersecting this theme, broadly understood, are welcome, and might include:

• The use of racial categories in social planning and policy
• The ontological status and import of racial categories
• Race and the justice system
• The role of race in social and political identity
• Intersectional analyses of racialized experience(s)
• Racial categories and educational institutions
• Race and experience
• Race and equity
• Racial violence
• The status of criminal hate

Other topics in this vein are welcome and encouraged.

Chosen presenters will join our invited speakers, Naomi Zack, Univ. of Oregon, who will present her recent work,"Racial Inequality and Applicative Justice: A Comparative Approach vs. Ideal and Nonideal Theory," and Quayshawn Spencer, U Penn (title TBA).

Submissions should take the form of extended abstracts or papers. Abstracts should be around 1000 words, with bibliography included. Papers should be under 3000 words. Please include the following information in submission: Name, affiliation (if any), email address, and paper title.

We welcome submissions from both members and non-members, but we do require that all presenters join the North American Society for Social Philosophy if their papers are accepted. Notification of acceptance will be made via email in October.

Submission deadline: September 15, 2015

Submissions and questions should be sent to: Devora Shapiro at [email protected], with the subject heading “NASSP APA 2016 SUBMISSION”

For more information on the society and our events, visit our website at:

http://www.northamericansocietyforsocialphilosophy.org/

CFP: Legacies of Colonialism & Philosophies of Resistance

21st Annual Philosophy Conference
Sponsored by the Philosophy Graduate Student Union

“Legacies of Colonialism and Philosophies of Resistance”

Keynote: TBA
April 8-9, 2016
Villanova University

Call For Papers

Millions throughout the world continue to struggle with the consequences of our colonial histories, both in the "first" and "third" worlds. Decolonization is thus an ongoing process that currently has no end in sight, and it implicates intellectuals, politicians, and citizens in all parts of the world. The conference invites participants to join in this process by thinking collectively about the remnants of colonialism's past and the possibility for a decolonized future. Such a project necessarily involves a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, political economy, history, cultural studies, and anthropology among others, as well as interpenetrations among such disciplines.

The Philosophy Graduate Student Union at Villanova University welcomes graduate students and faculty to submit papers of approximately 3000 words (including co-authored work), suitable for a 20 minute presentation, to be considered for our conference. Full papers will be strongly prioritized, though abstracts are also welcome (approx. 500 words). Authors submitting promising abstracts will likely receive feedback along with a suggested date by which to submit a more complete paper.

Please send submissions, prepared for anonymous review, by January 10, 2016 to [email protected]

Suggested
paper/panel topics:

• How is theorizing about our colonial histories continually important for understanding and affecting our present? For example, should we consider the contemporary world colonial, postcolonial, neocolonial, imperial, or are these historical categories no longer sufficient?
• Especially taking into account the multiple racial and ethnic divisions that comprise the binary between colonizer and colonized: How have race relations in former colonies affected philosophies of liberation and political projects? How have these philosophies and these projects affected race relations?
• How have the struggles of oppressed genders affected philosophies of liberation and political projects? How have these philosophies and these projects affected the situations and thought of oppressed genders?
• How have colonial and neocolonial regimes inherited, manipulated, and altered sexual practices and identities?
• How does and how should decolonial theory confront the policies and power structures of neoliberalism in both the “first” and “third” worlds?

We also encourage papers on Liberation Philosophy, Liberation Theology, Epistemologies of Ignorance and Resistance, Feminist Epistemologies, Philosophy of Race, and all other topics that might enliven the discourse of decolonial thought.

Suggested figures:
Gloria Anzaldúa, Samir Amin, Homi Bhabha, Amílcar  Cabral, Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Vivek Chibber, Enrique Dussel, Frantz Fanon, Édouard Glissant, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Ranajit Guha, Jamaica Kincaid, María Lugones, Joseph Masad, Achille Mbembe, Albert Memmi, Walter Mignolo, Kwame Nkrumah, Jasbir Puar, Aníbal Quijano, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and others.

For more information, contact:
Luis Alberto Salazar
Graduate Assistant
Philosophy Department
Villlanova University
800 E. Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085
[email protected]

Double Jeopardy - A report on women of color in science

Joan Williams (UC Hastings), Katherine Phillips (Columbia), and Erika Hall (Emory) have produced a report on women of color in science called "Double Jeopardy." 

"We interviewed sixty scientists who were all women of color. Women of color face “double jeopardy” because they encounter race as well as gender bias (Epstein, 1973; Almquist, 1975). This study explores how the experience of gender bias differs by race. We use the interviews of women of color in science and a survey that quantifies the experiences of White, Black, Asian-Americans, and Latina women in STEM fields to document the little-explored differences between the experiences of White women and women of color, and between different groups of women of color."

After a richly detailed report, they offer recommendations for change:

"This report concludes by introducing a new approach to organizational change to interrupt gender bias, called Metrics-Based Bias Interrupters (Williams, 2014). In contrast to traditional one-off bias trainings, and traditional sensitivity based organizational change initiatives, Bias Interrupters uses a four-step iterative process: 1) identify how gender bias is playing out, if at all, in basic business systems (recruiting, assignments, evaluations, etc.), 2) develop objective metrics to measure bias, 3) implement a bias interrupter to interrupt the bias, 4) see whether the relevant metric improves and, if it doesn’t, strengthen or modify the intervention. A compilation of Bias Interrupters is provided at the end of this report."

Thanks to Carla Fehr for the link.