Issue No. 1, December 2010
Women Philosophers Journal
International Network sponsored by UNESCO
Article proposals, limited to 20,000 signs (accompanied with a title, brief abstract and the author’s presentation) must be sent before 10 September 2010 to the following address: p.chanthalangsy@unesco.org , in electronic version.
Since the Journal is bilingual, the articles can be written in English or French.
Theme 1: Forms and strategies of dispute – About the relation to power
This theme intends to explore the different forms and strategies of resistance and/or avoidance that women philosophers have adopted to overcome the obstacles they encounter during their careers as philosophers. It is unquestionable that the resistance to the barriers and/or their overcoming are linked to the question of the relation to power; whether these obstacles and strategies are based on philosophical presuppositions or have a political purpose. The power to be, to speak and to act has been predominantly associated to the male or masculine command, in many societies and in some fields of knowledge more than in others.
By challenging this command, the very principles of identity, difference and universal are called into question. While today the universal seems too exclusive and reducible to the discourse of the masculine command, is it possible to conceive another universal How? And which one?
These questionings lead the way to different conceptions of alterity and diversity. Against the totalitarianism of the unique (totalitarianism defined as the control and the encroachment of all spheres of life), the contest tries to give a voice to the multiple, the local and the elsewhere. But this dispute should not turn itself into a new metanarrative of a unique that would be exclusive and excluding. Therefore, the question becomes: What are the conditions for a dispute to preserve its ability to open up and to encompass what has been left out? Considering the feminist schools of thought, this question has become more complex in the past thirty years with the emergence of the Gender Studies. Does this new discipline allow another form of dispute or is it merely a strategy of integration into the academic world? How can we thus conceive a resistance to the obstacles, somewhere between contest and integration, between the inside and the outside?
Associated topics (proposed during the 2009 Assembly of the Network): What is it to be a woman philosopher? The woman philosopher: Obstacles and positive resistance to obstacles. Translation, philosophical dialogue and pluralism. Within and beyond the lexicon – Investigation In order to have a better understanding of the way the different societies put into words, or/and fail to express, the difference between man and woman and their relation to philosophy, you are invited to participate in a lexicon investigation by answering the following questions in an article or through a short answer:
How do you say “philosophy” in your language? What does this term suggest? How is the man/woman difference worded in your language? Does the expression “woman philosopher” exist or is it conceivable and easy to say in your language?
Theme 2: Words that promise salvation
While the postmodern philosophy has taught us to deconstruct the totalizing and soteriological metanarratives, the language still often serves to comfort and to confirm the generally accepted ideas or the policies-in-force, to veil instead of stimulating, to reduce the differences instead of underlying the complexity, to disengage responsibility instead of engaging to think and to act. In the political, economic or academic fields, our societies continue to fabricate words that give the
illusion of solutions, thus saving us from what looks complicated, shocking or disenchanted.
Three examples among others can be mentioned here. 1. Today, the concepts of “Care” and “Caring democracy” are being used respectively in the social or “societal”, and in the political or “governance” fields, while the concept of “humanism” or “new humanism” is being identified as the value to be defended. What do these new concepts represent? What do they imply? 2. In the domain of security, what does the media and police overkill around the “fight against terrorism” reveal or conceal? Can this recent phenomenon be interpreted as a social and political construction of social fear, aimed at masking the failure of a certain type of government and of world domination? Is this not also a violent, or even tribal, attempt to cover the tragic that lies under the diversity and the difference? 3. In the academic field, one talks about “excellence”, “visibility” and the means that should allow measuring them, namely “evaluation”. Coming from the management sphere, the demand of evaluation has pervaded the whole academic domain. Created with a view to overcoming wastes, inaction and ineffectiveness, through a clear definition of the appropriate” means and ends, the evaluation procedure seems inadequate in its own field and refuted by the current crises. Is the evaluation viable in the fields of philosophy, social and human sciences, public service and welfare, and in human affairs in general? Can we – and how – refuse to evaluate and to “measure” the quality by means of quantitative data? How shall we consider the temporality imposed by a procedure that confusingly overlaps the long and the short term?
In front of these diverse attempts to master the unformed, the untamed, the tragic and what is human in the human being (although all these terms themselves have to be questioned), it is crucial that we rethink the way we analyze the reality. In this process, will it be possible to escape from fictional constructions, embodied in new or old words that have been given a new look and a new sense, such as “care”, “excellence”, “humanism”, etc.
Details here.
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