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Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 18:29:11 -0700
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From: "STEFANIE S. RIXECKER" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: CFP: Feminist ethico-politics
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Here's another announcement I thought might interest ECOFEMers.
Stefanie
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Date sent: Fri, 10 Mar 1995 20:23:13 -0500 (EST)
From: "Linda Lopez McAlister, SWIP-L Moderator" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: CFP: Feminist ethico-politics
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===========================CALL FOR PAPERS==================================
Bat-Ami Bar On Ann Ferguson
Department of Philosophy Department of Philosophy
SUNY at Binghamton UMass at Amherst
We are planning an anthology of essays of and about feminist ethico-politics to
be published by Routledge. We are seeking 2 to 3 page essay abstracts or
proposals for consideration. Our deadline for their submission is May 15,
1995.
Project Description
At the beginning of the second wave of the European and American Women's
Movement there was a sense that feminist issues were easy to identity: they
were those that all women had in common, e.g. reproductive rights or violence
against women. At the same time consciousness raising groups based on the
assumption that the personal is the political were breaking new ground, with
the consequent sense of a new kind of collective empowerment of those
involved. Since then those early choices of feminist issues have been
criticised as falsely universalizing and privileging some while excluding
other groups of women. In addition, the women's movement gravitated toward
political action centered around demands for changes in public policy thus
re-inscribing a particular mainstream notion of the political. We mean to
open an examination of what the terms "feminist issue" and "political issue"
have meant in the history of second wave feminist thought and mean today. At
the same time, we want to question the place of ethics in feminist thought--
how ethical issues connect to and are distinguished from political issues. We
offer the following ideas and questions as entry points into this project.
* Ethics and politics have been split in modern Western thought. What has this
meant to feminist theorizing? One might begin with a genealogical analysis of
the politics/ethics split in feminist writing, feminist theory and politics,
and in the academic disciplines, especially in philosophy, the social
sciences, and literary criticism. In the context of such an analysis, what
have been the relations between the reason/emotion, the public/private and
the politics/ethics splits? To what extent have there developed historically
different problematics, that is, different conceptual cores for ethics and
politics as theoretical enterprises which makes it difficult to rethink their
connections for a feminist ethico-politics?
* One effect of the Enlightenment attempt to develop a totalizing theory
which yields knowledge and truth is the theoretical prioritization of the
study of epistemology. Much feminist theory has replicated this priority.
This is evident in many projects, from critiques of traditional positivist
assumptions of epistemology by standpoint theory, attempts to theorize
feminist epistemological communities and feminist processes of communication
that can develop new knowledges with respect to feminist ethics and politics.
Should feminist ethics and politics presuppose a feminist epistemology?
Are postmodern critiques of Western epistemology successful in displacing
this as a foundational emphasis for feminist ethics and politics?
* Does feminist ethics and/or politics need a soul? What is at stake is no
less than a revisioning of the adage "the personal is the political". What is
at issue is how we account for ethico-political agency, subjectivity and the
kind of personal transformation necessary and intertwined with social change.
Should we answer this question by the metaphysical/ontological route? Should
one reject the question altogether as presupposing a suspect foundationalism
or do we need to develop a feminist ethico-political psychology? If so, is
what at issue cognition or sensibility? moral feelings and emotions? the
formation of ethico-political habits? other psychological bases for political
empowerment? How does the body relate to an ethico-political psychology?
* According to Queer Theory, identity politics is deployed as a moralizing
force: socially-imposed identities are construed as carrying moral
obligations. In this respect, there is a similarity between Right wing
critiques of feminism and Left identity politics, since acknowledging oneself
as "woman" implies different moral commitments, either to conserve or
transform the existing political order. Should all moralizing be avoided or
is some inevitable in any progessive ethico-politics? Is there a way feminist
ethico-politics can exist without identities? Would hybrid identities change
the ethico-political implications? Can a politics of location provide an
alternative?
* Another problem that surfaces with identity politics is the relation
between politics and self-interest as a mobilizing force. Can we create a
space of thinking ethico-politically which does not assume an inevitable
connection between political motivation and self-interest, while
acknowledging that such a moral space creates the possibility of
guilt-tripping? Could a radical democratic politics provide such an
ethico-political space which mitigates this problem as it is faced by
identity politics?
* What is the relation between ethics and/or politics and community in
feminism? This question can be framed both conceptually and historically.
Conceptually we may ask whether we need an intermediary between the self and
larger social units such as the economy, the nation and the state? Is
community the mediating place we all need for ethics as well as politics?
Framed historically it is important to understand the role of capitalist
development which breaks up or displaces communities and at the same time
produces possibilities for conceptualizing and creating new communities; e.g.
virtual electronic communities and networks. Can these new communities be
the site of personal transformation and ethico-political activism? Are the
old models of social transformation through oppositional communities
totalitarian and otherwise problematic? Should we in any case celebrate the
displacement of traditional face-to-face communities with the advent of urban
living and look for new models for collective personal transformation, e.g.
Queer politics or multicultural coalition politics?
=======
Please send abstracts or proposals to either Bat-Ami Bar On, Department of
Philosophy, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY
13902-6000 (email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) OR Ann Ferguson,
Department of Philosophy, University of Massachussets, Amherst, MA 01003
(email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]).
