Deadline: January 15, 2022
We invite submissions for the following international on-line conference, to be held August 29-31, 2022:
Women Philosophers and Russia
The barriers that women have faced in philosophy are no secret to specialists in the field. As Immanuel Kant said, “A woman who has a head full of Greek, like Mme Dacier, or carries on fundamental controversies about mechanics, like the Marquise de Chatelet, might as well have a beard” (Observations II, 230). In recent decades, scholars have begun to publish with increasing frequency on the philosophical work of Émilie du Châtelet, Christine de Pizan, Elisabeth of the Palatinate, and others—this, in spite of the almost complete absence of serious consideration of these thinkers in certain philosophical contexts. Up until the 20th century, in fact, it was nearly impossible for women to integrate themselves into philosophical life in any widespread sense. An example in this regard is Harriet Taylor Mill, who was unable to publish her own work independently, but who collaborated closely with her husband, a relationship that remains up for debate to this day. In John Stuart Mill’s own words on this kind of collaboration: “When two persons … arrive at their conclusions by processes pursued jointly, it is of little consequence … which of them holds the pen; the one who contributes least to the composition may contribute most to the thought; the writings which result are the joint product of both, and it must often be impossible to disentangle their respective parts, and affirm that this belongs to one and that to the other” (J. S. Mill, Autobiography, 251).
Continue reading “CFP: Women Philosophers and Russia (Dickinson College)”