CFP – Pragmatism and Phenomenology: Female Figures

King’s University College (UWO), London, Ontario, 27 – 28 April 2019.

This two-day workshop is a follow-up to the March 2017 Pragmatism and Phenomenology event at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario. Like its predecessor, this workshop presents an opportunity for scholars of both phenomenology and pragmatism to engage in a sustained round-table discussion on topics relevant to both groups. This year we wish to focus on the women of both movements, the significance of their ideas and the relevance they hold for philosophy today. This is not to say you cannot discuss a female figure or work from either movement in relation to a male figure or work, but the focus we wish to pursue is on the female figures and their contributions to these movements. A list of suggested figures for both pragmatism and phenomenology can be found below. The ways you engage these female thinkers is open and multifarious:  whether you compare or contrast ideas of a female phenomenologist and pragmatist or offer an exposition of one female thinker from either camp and show how their work/ideas are of importance for philosophers today, it’s all good and so valuable. Many of these female figures have received far too little attention. This workshop seeks to be a positive step in changing this. The organizers are interested in all topics and themes likely to be of interest to both pragmatists and phenomenologists.

The workshop is meant to be a discussion-type format and is not meant to be a formal presentation of papers. Workshop participants will be asked to lead or co-lead discussions on a topic of their choosing with discussion material circulated in advance. In order to facilitate this process, we ask that you submit a 150-word abstract of your discussion topic and one or two suggested readings for participants. It is not expected that participants are experts in both traditions, but merely that there is an interest in both and a willingness to learn more.

Submission due date: Abstract and supplementary reading deadline is 16 February 2019.

Please email your submission to Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray at kbaltzer@uwo.ca

Female Figures in Pragmatism:

Anna Julia Cooper
Jane Addams
Mary Parker Follett
Marietta Kies
Susan Blow
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Ella Flag Young
Elsie Ripley Clapp
Lucy Sprague Mitchell
Jessie Taft

Two figures who probably don’t count as pragmatists but who worked closely with Peirce on logic and semiotic, respectively, are:

Christine Ladd-Franklin
Lady Welby

Female Figures in Phenomenology:

Edith Stein
Gerda Walther
Hedwig Conrad-Martius
Else Voigtländer
Hannah Arendt
Margarete Calinich
Käte Hamburger
Betty Heimann
Adelgundis Jaegerschmid
Zagorka Mićić
Erica Sehl
Edith Landmann-Kalisher
Gertrud Kuznitsky

We can also extend to later figures:

Simone Weil
Simone de Beauvoir

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