Hypatia articles from March 2005

Hypatia archives from March 2005

Introduction: contemporary feminist philosophy in German.
March 22, 2005... Editing a Hypatia Special Issue of translated texts by feminist philosophers from German-speaking countries felt like a contradictory undertaking from the outset. In spite of my fondness for translation, I have been uncomfortable about pursuing...

Feminist philosophy in German: a historical perspective.
March 22, 2005... It is with great pleasure that I write an introductory contribution for this Special Issue--with double pleasure, in fact, since I truly appreciate both the editor's concept and the work of the authors presented here. There is definitely a need...

Asymmetrical genders: phenomenological reflections on sexual difference.
March 22, 2005... One of the basic assumptions of feminist philosophy is the existence of a gender asymmetry; the consensus thereby is that gender asymmetries must be overcome. "Overcoming asymmetries of the sexes" (Nagl-Docekal 2004, xv) or eliminating the...

Anthropological, social, and moral limitations of a multiplicity of genders.
March 22, 2005... Since it began about thirty years ago, gender research has--in many different areas and in different respects--explored the extent to which human beings, women as well as men, are determined in an actual cultural sense by their sex and gender...

Meaning in gender theory: clarifying a basic problem from a linguistic-philosophical perspective.
March 22, 2005... For some time now, the debate on sex and gender in feminist philosophy has led to an epistemological conflict based on the question how the various meanings of Geschlecht are produced. (1) Despite a lengthy debate this controversy has not yet...

Homelessness or symbolic castration? Subjectivity, language acquisition, and sociality in Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan.(Reprint)
March 22, 2005... Julia Kristeva's and Jacques Lacan's theories bear various resemblances. For example, both work on a connection between structuralist linguistics and psychoanalysis, even though they emphasize different aspects of this connection. Of course,...

Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt: against the destruction of political spheres of freedom.(Reprint)
March 22, 2005... Internal contradictions, incompleteness, and obstinacy characterize the work of Rosa Luxemburg as well as that of Hannah Arendt. Such putative weaknesses, summed up in the charge that they lack scholarly rigor, became a basis for excluding...

Body and gender within the stratifications of the social imaginary.
March 22, 2005... The body constitutes the core of the gender-specific imaginary--to be understood not in terms of a clearly determinable entity but as continuous transfiguration. This transfiguration of the body (or bodies) concerns simultaneously the crossing...

The ethical dimension of work: a feminist perspective.
March 22, 2005... More than with many other concepts in practical philosophy, work is a thoroughly historical category. (1) Transformations in the economic and technical organization of work call for changes in its the social and cultural dimensions as well as...

The end or the apotheosis of "labor"? Hannah Arendt's contribution to the question of the good life in times of global superfluity of human labor power.
March 22, 2005... What is most impressive in The Human Condition is the visionary foresight of Arendt's analysis of a labor society and its approaching end. Her prediction dates back to the 1950s, when industrial nations were in the midst of the recovery boom...

Equality and justice: remarks on a necessary relationship.(Gende equality in democratic society)(Reprint)
March 22, 2005... This essay is inspired by the growing lack of interest in equality within political discourse, which is instead currently shaped by such issues as deregulation and globalization. This trend is all the more disturbing given that it has coincided...

Gender, morality, and ethics of responsibility: complementing teleological and deontological ethics.
March 22, 2005... The goal of this article is the presentation of a complementary model (Erganzungsmodells) of deontological and teleological ethics. Suggestions for such a complementarity are not new in philosophy. Recall, for example, Max Scheler's work,...

Philosophische Geschlechtertheorien: Ausgewahlte Texte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Philosophische Geschlechtertheorien: Ausgewahlte Texte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Edited with an introduction by SABINE DOYE, MARION HEINZ, and FRIEDERIKE KUSTER. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2002. "What began as research into women's issues...

Feminist Philosophy.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Feminist Philosophy. By HERTA NAGL-DOCEKAL. Translated by Katharina Vester. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2004. The publication of this book in English, by one of the leading feminist philosophers in the German-speaking world, is an important...

Line Drawings: Defining Women through Feminist Practice.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Line Drawings: Defining Women through Feminist Practice. By CRESSIDA J. HEYES. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. The work of a philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose. --Ludwig Wittgenstein,...

A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... A Feminist Cosmology: Ecology, Solidarity, and Metaphysics. By NANCY R. HOWELL. Amherst: Humanity Books, 2000. Is it possible for feminist theory to construct a cosmology that recognizes the multitude of possible perspectives generated by...

Genes, Women, Equality.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Genes, Women, Equality. By MARY MAHOWALD. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. In Genes, Women, and Equality, Mary Mahowald considers a variety of genetic technologies and interventions from a feminist perspective. As she states, her...

Family Values: Subjects Between Nature and Culture.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... The Subject of Love: A Review of Family Values: Subjects Between Nature and Culture (New York: Routledge, 1997); and Witnessing: Beyond Recognition (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2001), by KELLY OLIVER. The titles of Kelly...

Globalizing Feminist Bioethics: Crosscultural Perspectives.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Globalizing Feminist Bioethics: Crosscultural Perspectives. Ed. ROSEMARIE TONG, with GWEN ANDERSON and AIDA SANTOS. Boulder: Westview, 2001. Globalizing Feminist Bioethics: Crosscultural Perspectives is a collection created from the 1998...

The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony.(Books about trauma narratives)(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Tales of Trauma: A Review of LEIGH GILMORE'S The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma and Testimony (Cornell University Press, 2001) and JANICE DOANE and DEVON HODGES'S Telling Incest: Narratives of Dangerous Remembering from Stein to Sapphire...

From the editor.(Editorial)
March 22, 2005... Ever since Hypatia came to Michigan State University almost two years ago, we have been struggling with an enormous backlog of previously commissioned and already written book reviews. This backlog has been so severe that as I write, in Spring...

The solace of resonance.(MUSINGS)(Loneliness, women in the modern society)
March 22, 2005... Like so many others I have been out campaigning for John Kerry in northern New Jersey, my old haunts when I worked as a union organizer. I haven't campaigned for a president since George McGovern. As I write we are weeks away from the election,...

Books received.(Bibliography)
March 22, 2005... Anderson, Pamela Sue, and Beverley Clack, eds. 2004. Feminist philosophy of religion. London: Routledge. Barnett, Rosalind, and Caryl Rivers. 2004. Same difference: How gender myths are hurting our relationships, our children, and our jobs....