Feminist Epistemologies

Thinking Gender

by Linda Martín Alcoff (Editor), Elizabeth Potter (Editor)

Feminist Epistemologies brings together original essays exploring the intersections of gender and knowledge. The contributors probe the difference gender makes by reframing old questions and looking through a feminist lens at such new questions as: Who is the subject of knowledge? How does the social position of the knower affect the production of knowledge? And what is the connection between knowledge and politics? Until now, the term "feminist epistemology" has typically been used to denote women's ways of knowing, women's experiences, and the critique of specific theories about women. This book inaugurates a field of study at the intersection of feminist philosophy and epistemology "proper."

Contributors:
Kathryn Pyne Addelson, Linda Alcoff, Susan Babbitt, Lorraine Code, Vrinda Dalmiya, Elizabeth Grosz, Sandra Harding, Helen Longino, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, Bat Ami Bar On, Elizabeth Potter.

Genres: Philosophy, Feminism, Womens, Gender, Theory, Nonfiction, Academic

312 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 1992

About the author

Linda Martín Alcoff (born July 25, 1955 in Panama) is a philosopher at the City University of New York who specializes in epistemology, feminism, race theory and existentialism. From 2012 to 2013, she served as president of the American Philosophical Association (APA), Eastern Division. Alcoff has called for greater inclusion of historically under represented groups in philosophy and notes that philosophers from these groups have created new fields of inquiry, including feminist philosophy, critical race theory, and LGBTQ philosophy. To help address these issues, with Paul Taylor and William Wilkerson, she started the Pluralist Guide to Philosophy. She earned her PhD in Philosophy from Brown University. She was recognized as the distinguished Woman Philosopher of 2005 by the Society for Women in Philosophy and the APA. She began teaching at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center in early 2009, after teaching for many years at Syracuse University.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Arda]

Notes taken mostly from Alcoff contributions in journals:

In ‘The Problem of Speaking for Others,” Alcoff (1991) demonstrates that the locations of privilege can be dangerous as it creates large gaps between what is spoken of and who is spoken for; there is something that is constructed in that process of representation, and it is not disconnected from the ‘power’ of discourse as well as the ‘power’ of place (Alcoff, 1991).

[Esther Friedlander]

Interesting collection... includes some duds for sure but I think maybe intentionally to put it in conversation with the things that make sense? Idk but Bar On should probably not be supported lol she says some crazy shit

[Emilie]

*syllabus*
Older texts with difficult scientific and academic language. As well as not very explanatory

[grace]

Pedantic.

[John]

I have found this an immensely suggestive book, collecting as it does essays from both prominent and rising figures in feminist philosophy of knowledge--albeit from about two decades ago. I am struck by how little impact feminist thought, even of this high and generally temperate quality, has had on evangelical theology, to the shame of my guild.

If you're new to the idea, let alone the discourse, of feminist epistemology, this is an excellent place to start.

[Angie]

I used this for one of the cornerstones on my master's thesis about modern society's view of midwives bv. doctors and how we are legitimized by the way in which we learn things. Fascinating!

[Elizabeth]

trade paper

[jpnmusings]

Performative male except it's the feminist epistemologies