Hypatia articles from September 2006

Hypatia archives from September 2006

Receptacle/chora: figuring the errant feminine in Plato's Timaeus.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... This essay undertakes a reexamination of the notion of the receptacle/chora in Plato's Timaeus, asking what its value may be to feminists seeking to understand the topology of the feminine in Western philosophy. As the source of cosmic motion...

Contentious freedom: sex work and social construction.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... In this article, Brison extends the analysis of freedom developed in Nancy J Hirschmann's book, The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom, to an area of controversy among feminist theorists: that of sex work, including...

That many of us should not parent.(Essay)
September 22, 2006... In liberal societies (where birth control is generally accepted and available), many people decide whether or not they wish to become parents. One key question in making this decision is, What kind of parent will I be? Parenting competence can...

Coming down to earth on cloning: an ecofeminist analysis of homophobia in the current debate.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... In this essay, Davion argues that many arguments appealing to an "intuition" that reproductive cloning is morally wrong because it is "unnatural" rely upon an underlying moral assumption that only heterosexuality is "natural," an assumption...

Nancy J. Hirschmann on the social construction of women's freedom.(Essay)
September 22, 2006... Nancy J. Hirschmann presents a feminist, social constructionist account of women's freedom. Friedman's discussion o f Hirschmann's account deals with (1) some conceptual problems facing a thoroughgoing social constructionism; (2) three ways to...

The logic of chastity: women, sex, and the history of philosophy in the early modern period.(Essay)
September 22, 2006... Before women could become visible as philosophers, they had first to become visible as rational autonomous thinkers. A social and ethical position holding that chastity was the most important virtue for women, and that rationality and chastity...

Symposium on Nancy J. Hirschmann's the subject of liberty: toward a feminist theory of freedom.(Column)
September 22, 2006... Introduction The basic approach of my book is to take three practical issues relating to women's lives--domestic violence, welfare, and Islamic veiling--and use them to critically assess dominant political theories of freedom. Right off...

Response to Friedman and Brison.(Essay)
September 22, 2006... Here, Hirschmann responds to Marilyn Friedman and Susan J. Brison's comments on The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom. She clarifies some aspects of her social construction argument, articulates the role of discourse and...

How America justifies its war: a modern/postmodern aesthetics of masculinity and sovereignty.(Essay)
September 22, 2006... The lies about the reasons for the U.S. war against Iraq provoked no mass public outcry in the United States against the war. What is the process of justification for this war, a process that seems to need no reasons? Mann argues that the...

Crossing the borders: an interview with Julia Kristeva.(Interview)
September 22, 2006... In this June 2004 interview, Julia Kristeva takes us through her long and extraordinary career as a writer, an intellectual, and an academic. She speaks of her early years as a radical poststructuralist, postmodern feminist, and discusses how...

Elizabeth Spelman, gender realism, and women.(Essay)
September 22, 2006... Elizabeth Spelman has famously argued against gender realism (the view that women have some feature in common that makes them women). By and large, feminist philosophers have embraced Spelman's arguments and deemed gender realist positions...

Can politics practice compassion?(Essay)
September 22, 2006... On realist terms, politics is about power, security, and order, and the question of whether politics can practice compassion is irrelevant. The author argues that a politics of compassion is possible and necessary in order to address human...

The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely and Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely and Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. By ELIZABETH GROSZ. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005. Elizabeth Grosz has recently published two new books: The Nick of Time:...

Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect. By DENISE RILEY. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005. Denise Riley's Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect is a collection of provocative essays on a wide variety of language-related topics....

Connected Lives: Human Nature and an Ethics of Care.(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Connected Lives: Human Nature and an Ethics of Care. By RUTH E. GROENHOUT Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. In Connected Lives: Human Nature and an Ethics of Care, Ruth Groenhout acknowledges that central components of her...

Linking Visions: Feminist Bioethics, Human Rights, and the Developing World.
September 22, 2006... Linking Visions: Feminist Bioethics, Human Rights, and the Developing World. Ed. ROSEMARIE TONG, ANNE DONCHIN, and SUSAN DODDS. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Linking Visions is a collection of essays that came out of the...

Varieties of Feminist Liberalism.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Varieties of Feminist Liberalism. Ed. AMY R. BAEHR. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. Acknowledging that liberalism has been a major foil for feminism, Amy Baehr pulls together a collection of essays that explore the relationship...

Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays. Ed. SALLY HASLANGER and CHARLOTTE WITT. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. The goal of this book is "to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to explore and critique...

EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldua.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... EntreMundos/AmongWorlds: New Perspectives on Gloria Anzaldua. Ed. ANALOUISE KEATING. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. In this collection, AnaLouise Keating draws attention to some of Anzaldua's less discussed work. Each of the five...

Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy.
September 22, 2006... Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy. Ed. ANDREW VALLS. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. As noted by Valls in his introduction, race and racism developed alongside theories of modern philosophy. This collection explores that...

Feminist Interventions in Ethics and Politics: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory.
September 22, 2006... Feminist Interventions in Ethics and Politics: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory. Ed. BARBARA S. ANDREW, JEAN KELLER, and LISA H. SCHWARTZMAN. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Feminist Interventions is a collection of innovative...

Sex Rights.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2006... Sex Rights. Ed. NICHOLAS BAMFORTH. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Nicholas Bamforth draws from the Oxford Amnesty Lectures in order to bring together this collection that explores gender, sexuality, and human rights. What unifies...

The unhappy marriage of care ethics and virtue ethics.(Essay)
September 22, 2006... The proposal that care ethic(s) (CE) be subsumed under the framework of virtue ethic(s) WE) is both promising and problematic for feminists. Although some attempts to construe care as a virtue are more commendable than others, they cannot...

Philosophical doggedness.(MUSINGS)(Critical essay)
September 22, 2006... The very existence of a genre of writing called Musings in a journal of philosophy gives a little jiggle to what might be thought to be appropriate philosophical territory, or at least appropriate ways of covering such territory. One can...