2019 Feminist Summer Reading School: Philosophy and Bodies
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The third annual Feminist Summer Reading School, hosted in June 2019 by Cornell University, centered on the theme of “Philosophy and Bodies”. Organized by Bianca Takaoka (Cornell), Bianca Waked (Cornell), and Michael Greer (CUNY Grad Center), the FSRS was a week-long summer school open to undergrads, master students, and doctoral students in philosophy. Uniquely structured insofar as all required reading took place at the Summer School and not beforehand, participants dispersed to read and later reconvened for discussion sessions.
In addition to the demanding reading schedule, participants were given the opportunity to engage with  Kate Manne (Cornell), Robin Dembroff (Yale), and Elena Ruíz (Michigan State), three leading scholars working at the intersection of feminist philosophies and the body.

For more information on the FSRS or previous iterations of the FSRS, click here.

​​Readings and Topics

INTERSECTIONALITY & STANDPOINT THEORY
  1. Elena Ruíz’s “Framing Intersectionality” 
  2.  Linda Alcoff’s “Epistemologies of Ignorance: Three types”

HISTORY OF MIND-BODY RELATION 
  1. Christia Mercer's "The Philosophical Roots of Western Misogyny"
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REPRODUCTION, RACE, AND MISOGYNY
  1. Natalie Cisneros' "Alien Sexuality: Race, Maternity, and Citizenship"

GENDER
  1. Robin Dembroff's  “Metaphysics of Gender” 
  2. Talia Mae Bettcher's "Trapped in the Wrong Theory: Rethinking Trans Oppression and Resistance "
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LATINX PHILOSOPHY
  1. Elena Ruíz’s “Theorizing Multiple Oppression Through Colonial History”
  2. Elena Ruíz and Kristie Dotson's “The Politics of Coalition” 
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TRAUMA  
  1. Susan Brison's Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of the Self, excerpt.
  2.  Melissa Burchard, “Philosophical Reflections on Mothering"
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FATNESS 
  1. Yofi Tirosh's The Right to Be Fat, excerpt.
  2. Michelle Meagher's "Jenny Saville and a Feminist Aesthetics of Disgust"
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CAPTIVITY
  1. Christine Korsgaard's "Treated like Animals"
  2. Lisa Rivera's "Coercion and Captivity"
  3. Lisa Guenther's "Unmaking and Remaking the World in Solitary Confinement"

DISABILITIES
  1. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's "Misfits: A Feminist Material Disability Concept"
  2. Julia Watts Belser's "Vital Wheels: Disability, Relationality, and Queer Animacy of Vibrant Things"

BLACK FEMINISM
  1. Myisha Cherry's "Love, Anger, and Racial Injustice"
  2. Devonya Harris's "Blackness beyond Witness: Black Vernacular Phenomena and Auditory Identity"
  3. Anika Simpson's "Black Philosophy and the Erotic"

MORALITY AND BODIES
  1. Kate Manne's "Locating Morality: Moral Imperatives as Bodily Imperatives"

ARAB FEMINISM
  1. Alia Al-Saji's "The Racialization of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis"
  2. Traci West's "Extending Black Sisterhood in the Face of Violence: Fannon, White Women, and Veiled Muslim Women"

BODY MODIFICATION
  1. E.M. Dadlez's "Ink, Art, and Expression: Philosophical Questions about Tattoos"
  2. Samantha Brennan's "Fashion and Why Recognition Matters"
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SEXUALITY AND INTIMACY
  1. Quill R. Kukla's "Sex Talks"
  2. Kristin Jacobson's "The Temporality of Intimacy: Promise, World, and Death"
  3. Kym Maclaren's "Touching Matters, Embodiments of Intimacy"

​Readings Groups

Fall-Spring 2020: Philosophy and the Public Sphere
A group of graduate students met every other week this year to discuss articles related to the topic of "Philosophy and the Public Sphere." Readings this semester included (but was not limited to) the following:

Desiree Valentine's "Women in Philosophy: Cramblett, Race, Disability, and Liberatory Politics" (https://blog.apaonline.org/2019/08/14/women-in-philosophy-cramblett-race-disability-and-liberatory-politics/ (Links to an external site.)) 

Jennifer Morton's "Is Meritocracy Hurting Higher Education?" (https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190911-meritocracy-forum (Links to an external site.))
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Emily Herring's "Henri Bergson: The Philosophy Damned for his Female Fans" (https://aeon.co/essays/henri-bergson-the-philosopher-damned-for-his-female-fans (Links to an external site.)).