Symposium on Noëlle McAfee’s “Two Feminisms”

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McAfee’s article is accessible here, via the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2005. McAfee writes at her blog:

An article of mine that I wrote a few years ago,”Two Feminisms,”found a new life as the subject of the fall symposium of the online journal, Symposia on Gender, Race, and Philosophy. Every season the editors pick an article for a symposium and also four scholars to critique it. Then the author has an opportunity to reply; the reply along with the critiques are posted; and the symposium is open for public commentary. My four interlocutors:Amy Allen, Nancy Bauer, Scott Pratt, and Linda Zerilli:had quite varied responses to the paper, all of which prompted me to put the piece in a broader frame.”Having read my interlocutors, it now occurs to me that …’Two Feminisms’ isn’t about two distinct groups of feminist scholars; it’s about two different conceptions of power and politics.”In the original article and the response, I argue for a model of politics and change that is deliberative in the Deweyan (not Habermasian) sense, a model where change need not come from battling the other but from working on changing the ways in which the larger sociosymbolic system situates us. The deep problem that accompanies injustice is the ways”the system,”and not just segments of society, puts us in”our place.”By moving the focus from primarily particular bad actors to the larger sociosymbolic sphere, I’ve touched some nerves. But this is a discussion worth having.

Symposium Commentaries (click on names to read essays):

Amy R. Allen (Dartmouth College)
Nancy Bauer (Tufts University)
Scott L. Pratt (University of Oregon)
Linda M. G. Zerilli (Northwestern University)

Reply by Noëlle McAfee (George Mason University)

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