Hypatia articles from March 2006

Hypatia archives from March 2006

Diotima and Demeter as mystagogues in Plato's Symposium.(The Symposium)(book review)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... All this flows from the arguments of Plato--laughter and movement; people getting up and going out; the hour changing; tempers being lost; jokes cracked; the dawn rising. Truth, it seems, is various; Truth is to be pursued with all our...

The unacknowledged Socrates in the works of Luce Irigaray.(criticism and interpretation of Luce Irigaray)
March 22, 2006... In this essay, I develop a critical interpretation of Luce Irigaray's readings of Plato in Speculum of the Other Woman and in "Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato, Symposium, 'Diotima's Speech'" (Irigaray 1985a, 1993a). Irigaray's analysis of...

On treating things as people: objectification, pornography, and the history of the vibrator.
March 22, 2006... Objectification--often loosely described as treating people as things--has long been a central concern of feminism (especially with respect to the treatment of women as things). Recently, feminists have begun evincing concern for a closely...

A defense of stiffer penalties for hate crimes.
March 22, 2006... After being beaten, James Byrd Jr., a disabled Black man in Jasper, Texas, was chained to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged to his death. After being robbed and beaten, Matthew Shepard, a gay student in Wyoming, was tied like a...

The unaccountable subject: Judith Butler and the social conditions of intersubjective agency.
March 22, 2006... In the years since the publication of Gender Trouble, Judith Butler's notion of performative subjectivity has demonstrated its emancipatory power. Indeed, the text has induced a social transformation such that it has, in a sense, "performed"...

The epistemological significance of psychic trauma.
March 22, 2006... What happens to our beliefs about the world after a traumatic experience, and are these traumatically informed beliefs justified? The sorts of beliefs that I have in mind, for example, are the rape survivor's belief that she is never safe or...

Foucault goes to weight watchers.
March 22, 2006... For feminists, weight-loss dieting has long been associated with the tyranny of slenderness and the enforcement, by patriarchal disciplinary practices, of an ideal body type that carries a powerful symbolism of self-discipline, controlled...

Catharine Macaulay on the paradox of paternal authority in Hobbesian politics.
March 22, 2006... That the universe is governed by one God we will not dispute; and will also add, that God has an undoubted right to govern what he has himself created, and that it is beneficial to the creature to be governed by the Father of all things;...

The book at a glance.(The Spectacle of Violence)(book review)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... In The Spectacle of Violence: Homophobia, Gender, and Knowledge I seek to ignite a debate about the epistemological capacities of violence by unpacking and elaborating on these assertions. Focusing on the example of homophobic violence and...

Experience, embodiment, and epistemologies.
March 22, 2006... In The Spectacle of Violence, Gail Mason undertakes an important project. She is arguing that "individuals assess their own experience and vulnerability to violence by identifying and managing the situations and groups of people that pose a...

The manifolds of violences.(The Spectacle of Violence)(book review)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... In this first section, I am going to focus on what I take to be the most important and ultimately most contentious feature of Gail Mason's The Spectacle of Violence: its analysis of violence as constitutive and productive, not merely negating...

Fear and hope: author's response.
March 22, 2006... My response to this symposium is going to be an emotional one. Not because I am going to cry, shout, or even laugh a lot, but because I am going to invoke certain feelings or affects as a way of "thinking," to borrow from Martha Nussbaum, about...

Singing in the Fire: Stories of Women in Philosophy.(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Singing in the Fire: Stories of Women in Philosophy. Edited by LINDA MARTIN ALCOFF. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003. Singing in the Fire is a collection of autobiographical essays by women philosophers along with a strong...

Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives.(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Edited by CAROLE R. MCCANN and SEUNG-KYUNG KIM. New York: Routledge, 2003. "This anthology assembles readings that present key aspects of the conversations and debates within...

Philosophy, Feminism, and Faith.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Philosophy, Feminism, and Faith. Edited by RUTH E. GROENHOUT and MARYA BOWER Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. This anthology addresses the seemingly incompatible concepts contained in its title: philosophy, feminism, and faith....

Feminist Philosophy of Religion.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Feminist Philosophy of Religion. Edited by PAMELA SUE ANDERSON and BEVERLEY CLACK. New York: Routledge, 2004. Recognizing that most of the debate in the philosophy of religion has excluded women in thought and practice, this anthology seeks...

Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2006... Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers. Edited by CHESHIRE CALHOUN. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. This collection admirably recognizes and documents the contribution various women have made to moral philosophy by...

The L word and the F word.(MUSINGS)
March 22, 2006... In the jargon of today's mainstream mass media, 'liberal' has become the L word and 'feminist' has become the F word. This co-opting of L and F trades on public squeamishness regarding the designations of earlier, and blunter, L and F words....

Books received.(book lists)(Brief article)
March 22, 2006... Bamforth, Nicholas, ed. 2005. Sex rights: Oxford amnesty lectures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chanter, Tina, and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, eds. 2005. Revolt, affect, collectivity: The unstable boundaries of Kristeva's polis. Albany:...