philoSOPHIA 2018
Biopower
Biologics
Biosphere
philoSOPHIA 2018 Conference Information
The 12th annual meeting of philoSOPHIA: Society for Continental Feminism will run from Thursday evening, March 22nd through Saturday evening, March 24th , 2018
All sessions will be held at University of Richmond Downtown Campus: 626 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23219
There is no registration fee for participants. All facilities at the conference site will be gender neutral.
Conference Hotel:
Richmond Marriott Downtown: 500 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23219 +1-804-643-3400
Group rate: $155 per night; Registration deadline: February 22nd, 2018
Link to register: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/ricdt-richmond-marriott/
Map and Directions to and from RIC airport: here
Note: There is no airport shuttle to the Marriott.
Accessibility questions or requests: access.philosophia [at] gmail.com
Our 2018 keynote speaker is Dr. Joy James
Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Humanities, Williams College.
"The Captive Maternal and Political Trauma: A Testimonial for Erica Garner (1990-2017)"
4:30 PM, Friday, March 23 on the Lower Level (LL)
Dr. James’ books include Transcending the Talented Tenth, Warfare in the American Heartland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy, The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings, Imprisoned Intellectuals: America’s Political Prisoners Write on Life, Liberation, and Rebellion, and Seeking the Beloved Community: A Feminist Race Reader.
philoSOPHIA Schedule, March 22-24, 2018
Thursday’s reception and Friday and Saturday sessions will be held at the UR Downtown campus of the University of Richmond, 626 East Broad Street, suite 100, Richmond, VA 23219 (one block east of the Marriott).
Room Designations:
LL = Lower Level
CL = Classroom
CM = Community Room
CF = Conference Room
Thursday, March 22
Conference packets will be available at Thursday night’s events.
Thu. 6:15 – 7:00 CM: Mandatory Training for Moderators
Thu. 7:00 – 8:30 Gallery: Wine and Cheese Reception for all Attendees
Friday, March 23
Fri. 9:00 – 9:15 Coffee and Snacks – conference packets available.
Fri. 9:15 – 10:15
LL: Paper: “Foucault’s Vermin: From Extermination to Regulation of Pest Species,” Dayne B. Alexander, Emory University– moderated by Ege Selin Islekel, Loyola Marymount University ***(projection equipment in use)***
CL: Paper: “A Critique of the Political Economy of Sex: Rubin, Butler and Marx,” Anne van Leeuwen, James Madison University– moderated by Kathleen Skerrett, University of Richmond
CM: Paper: “Hetero-next-uals: Rupturing Straight Time in Cringeworthy Phases of Sexual Experimentation,” Rachel McNealis, Marquette University – moderated by Margaret McLaren, Rollins College
Fri 10:30-12:45
LL: Panel: Against Biopolitical Containment: Strategies of Trans World-Making– moderated by Jana McAuliffe, University of Arkansas, Little Rock
“Turning the Tide: Trans Experience of Curiosity,” Perry Zurn, American University
“Erotic (Un)becomings: Phenomenologies of Transition and the Bioethics of Repair,” Tamsin Kimoto, Emory University
“Managing the Threat of Becoming: Trans Subjects, Medical Discourse and the Biopolitical Containment of Gender Possibilities,” James Zubka, University of Memphis
“Embodied Thresholds of Sanctuary: Abolitionism and Trans Worldmaking,” Andrea Pitts, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
CL: Panel: Affective Labor and Feminist Politics in a Biopolitical Economy– moderated by Shiloh Whitney, Fordham University
“Affective Labor as Resistance in the Biopolitical Society,” Christopher R. Myers, Fordham University
“Returning to the Alienation Critique,” Gwen Daugs, Fordham University
"The Production of Death: Affective Labor, Affective Economy, and Capitalism,” Ela Tokay, Fordham University
CM: Book Panel: Jennifer Scuro’s Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies (Lexington Books)– moderated by Joel Reynolds, The Hastings Center (see below for info)
Commentator: Maeve O’Donovan, Notre Dame of Maryland University
Commentator: Kelsey Borrowman, Villanova University
Commentator: Lydia X. Z. Brown, Northeastern University School of Law
Response: Jennifer Scuro, The College of New Rochelle
CF: Workshop (pre-registered participants only): Foucault and Wynter: A Philosophical Encounter with and Against the Human– moderated by Lynne Huffer, Emory University, and Taryn Jordan, Emory University
Fri. 1:00 LUNCH
Fri. 2:15 – 4:30
LL: Panel: Genes, Parents, and Pregnant Women– moderated by Taryn Jordan, Emory University
“Geontopower, Genomics, and the Dominion of Information,” Joel M. Reynolds, The Hastings Center ***(projection equipment in use)***
“’You’re Already Off the Clock’: Temporalizing the Pregnant Subject,” Jill Drouillard, Université Paris-Sorbonne IV ***(projection equipment in use)***
CL: Panel: Uses and Limits of Foucault’s ‘Biopower’– moderated by Rania Sweis, University of Richmond
“Woman Becoming Man, Man Becoming Women: The Biopolitics of Friendship between the Sexes in ihn Arabi,” Ali Reza Pharaa, Stonybrook University
“Governance and the Formation of Objectivity: Expanding Our Understanding of the Biopolitical,” Theodra Bane, Villanova University
“Feminist Heterotopias,” Margaret McLaren, Rollins College
CM: Panel: Disrupting Colonizing Discourses– moderated by Monika Siebert, University of Richmond
“What Can a River Do? Spinoza, Immanent Ethics, and the Indigenous-Led Ecological Struggle Against DAPL,” Oli Stefano, Bard College
“Toward Planetary Taste,” Jana McAuliffe, University of Arkansas, Little Rock
“The Prison-House of Being: Fanon on Language and Colonial World-Collapse,” Katherine Ward, Georgetown University
Fri. 4:45 – 6:30
LL: Keynote Plenary– moderated by Ladelle McWhorter
"The Captive Maternal and Political Trauma: A Testimonial for Erica Garner (1990-2017)," Joy James, Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Humanities and Political Science, Williams College
Fri. 6:30 DINNER
Saturday, March 24
Room Designations:
LL = Lower Level
CL = Classroom
CM = Community Room
CF – Conference Room
Sat. 8:45 – 9:00 Coffee and Snacks
Sat. 9:00 – 10:30
LL: Panel: Breath, Race, and the Human– moderated by Lynne Huffer, Emory University
“The Racialization of Breath,” Jack R. Leff, University of North Carolina at Charlotte ***(projection equipment in use)***
“Whiteness as the Gatekeeper of Being: Wynter, Biopower, and the Imperfect Application of the Designation ‘Human,’” Samantha Wrisley, Emory University
CM: Panel: Feminist Biologics of Becoming through Raymond Ruyer– moderated by Emily Parker, Towson University
“Irigaray and Ruyer: The De-Specularization and De-Spatialization of Form,” Annu Dahiya, Duke University
“Embryogenesis, Firstness, and a Cosmologics of the Maternal,” Maryann D. Murtagh, Duke University
Sat. 10:45 – 12:30
LL: Panel: Grappling with Materialisms– moderated by William Paris, Penn State University
“Feminism, Force, and Finitude: (Mis)understanding Elizabeth Grosz’s Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics, and Art,” Claus Halberg, University of Bergen, Norway
“God Particle: Sublimity, Physics, and Virtuality in Black Feminist Poetics,” Zakiyya Iman Jackson, University of Southern California
CL: Panel: Bodies of Knowledge– moderated by Perry Zurn, American University
“Eating and the Existential Phenomenology of Bodily Control,” Talia Welsh, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
“Sometimes Quiet is Violent: On Radical Reflection, Queer Phenomenology and Epistemic Violence,” Valérie Simon, University of Oregon
“Trans Identity and the Politics of Biology,” Sarah Hansen, California State University, Northridge
CM: Book Panel: Shelley Tremain’s Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability (U of Michigan Press)– Introduction by Melinda Hall, Stetson University (see below for info)
Commentator: Devonya Havis, Canisius College
Commentator: Lauren Guilmette, Florida Atlantic University
Response: Shelley Tremain, independent scholar
CF: Workshop (pre-registered participants only): On Gender and Violence: Course Design and Pedagogy” – moderated by Erika Zimmerman Damer, Mariela Mendez, and Mari Lee Mifsud, University of Richmond
Participants:
Bartolo Natoli, Randolph Macon College
Kathleen Skerrett, University of Richmond
Holly Moore, Luther College
Asia Ferrin, American University
Ollie Schwartz, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Taina Figueroa, James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, Emory University
Sat. 1:00 LUNCH
CM: Business Meeting will begin at 1:00. Attendees can pick up lunches from area restaurants to bring to the meeting
Sat. 2:00 – 3:00
LL: “A Critical Perspective on Ecological Aesthetics and Architectural Atmosphere through the Work of Gernot Bőhme,” Andrea Wheeler, Iowa State University– moderated by Gary Shapiro, University of Richmond ***(projection equipment in use)***
CM: Paper: “Humor Can’t Wait,” Cynthia Willett, Emory University– moderated by Robert Leib, Florida Atlantic University
Sat. 3:15 – 5:30
LL: Bodies, Affect, and Agency– moderated by Allison Tait, University of Richmond School of Law
“Affective Labor and the Service Economy: Energy Draining and Docile Bodies,” Emily O’Connell, Florida Atlantic University
“’We Are Not Disposable’: Psychiatric/Psycho-Social Disabilities and Social Justice,” Carol Moeller, Moravian College ***(projection equipment in use)***
CL: Panel: Attuning to Contingency in Conceptualizing Life– moderated by Elisabeth Paquette, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
“Errands for the Wild,” Julietta Singh, University of Richmond
“Materialism, Contingency, Need,” Lenora Hanson, New York University
“Pleasures of the Text,” Nathan Snaza, University of Richmond
CM: Panel: Navigating Racial Interstices– moderated by Holly Moore, Luther College
“Mixed Race as Mixed Citizening: Disrupting Logics of Race, Nation, and Citizenship in the Politics of Multiracialism,” Desirée Valentine, Penn State University
“Irreconcilable Differences or Indivisible Struggles?: (Re)Uniting the Movements Against Gender Violence and For Prison Abolition,” Quin M. Rich, Emory University
"How Black People 'do it': Aformation, Sexuality, and Rhythmic Embodiment," Zachary Easterling, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
This year will feature book sessions on:
Shelley L. Tremain, Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability (U Michigan), 2017
Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability is a distinctive contribution to growing discussions about how power operates within the academic field of philosophy. By combining the work of Michel Foucault, the insights of philosophy of disability and feminist philosophy, and data derived from empirical research, Shelley L. Tremain compellingly argues that the conception of disability that currently predominates in the discipline of philosophy, according to which disability is a natural disadvantage or personal misfortune, is inextricably intertwined with the underrepresentation of disabled philosophers in the profession of philosophy. Against the understanding of disability that prevails in subfields of philosophy such as bioethics, cognitive science, ethics, and political philosophy, Tremain elaborates a new conception of disability as a historically specific and culturally relative apparatus of power. Although the book zeros in on the demographics of and biases embedded in academic philosophy, it will be invaluable to everyone who is concerned about the social, economic, institutional, and political subordination of disabled people.
Jennifer Scuro, Addressing Ableism: Philosophical Questions via Disability Studies (Rowman & Littlefield), 2017
Addressing Ableism is a set of philosophical meditations outlining the scale and scope of ableism. By explicating concepts like experience, diagnosis, precariousness, and prosthesis, Scuro maps out the institutionalized and intergenerational forms of this bias as it is analogous and yet also distinct from other kinds of dehumanization, discrimination, and oppression. This project also includes a dialogical chapter on intersectionality with Devonya Havis and Lydia Brown, a philosopher and writer/activist respectively. Utilizing theorists like Judith Butler, Tobin Siebers, Emmanuel Levinas, and Hannah Arendt to address ableism, Scuro thoroughly critiques the neoliberal culture and politics that underwrites ableist affections and phobias. This project exposes the many material and non-material harms of ableism, and it offers multiple avenues to better confront and resist ableism in its many forms. Scuro provides crucial insights into the many uninhabitable and unsustainable effects of ableism and how we might revise our intentions and desires for the sake of a less ableist world.
