Call For Papers

SWIP Ireland 2020 Annual Conference

Maynooth University, 15^th-17^th May 2020

“What is Philosophy?”

What is philosophy? What qualifies one as a philosopher? What counts as doing philosophy? Who decides what philosophy is? Who polices its boundaries? Have perceptions of philosophy changed in recent years? Why do philosophy? What is the role of the philosopher? What is its proper or intended audience? Is it merely a theoretical consideration of practice, distinct from practice, or is it very much science itself? And what are philosophy’s own blind-spots?

In times of political, social, cultural, environmental, and existential uncertainty, it is important to reflect on philosophy’s role in helping us to address the challenges we face. In so doing, it is equally important to reflect on its legacies, its genesis and its ‘underside’. There is a clear need for the analytic tools and the critical and creative thought philosophy cultivates. But questions about how philosophy can contribute to current debates in politics, arts, science, the environment, and education, and how might it be understood as part of the ‘public humanities’ broadly construed remain unanswered.

SWIP-Ireland’s Eighth Annual Conference seeks to probe the boundaries between philosophy and a range of other disciplines, practices, perspective and themes. It aims to raise questions about the proper relationship between philosophy and the social and natural sciences and to examine how diverse philosophical concepts shape and orient practices, institutions, values and priorities. Our hope is to open up a broad conversation about philosophy itself, its aims, its scope, its limits, its blind-spots, its legacies, and its relationships with other fields of scholarship and practice. This conference will bring philosophers together in dialogue with researchers and practitioners in other fields in an attempt to address these urgent questions about what philosophy is and what it should be.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Denise Ferreira da Silva (University of British Columbia)

Iris van der Tuin (University of Utrecht)

Miriam Solomon (Temple University)

Maria Baghramian (University College Dublin)

We welcome proposals from a broad range of disciplines, including both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy, critical theory, history of philosophy, cultural studies, literary studies, and other relevant disciplines. Inter- and cross- disciplinary perspectives are also strongly encouraged as well as proposals for co-presentations and panels. Possible topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

• Philosophy and literature
• Philosophy and art
• Philosophy and politics
• Philosophy and biology
• Philosophy and gender
• Philosophy and cultural domination
• Philosophy and political engagement
• Philosophy and colonialism
• Philosophy and race
• Metaphilosophy
• Non-western perspectives on philosophy
• The philosophical life
• The role of the philosopher
• Philosophy, love, and knowledge
•  

Deadline: January 10th 2020

Abstracts (max 500 words) should be prepared for blind review and submitted in a Word document (together with a separate cover sheet, which includes the author’s name and contact details) and emailed to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Eligible early career researchers are also invited to submit full papers (4,000 max) in order to be considered for The Maria Baghramian Prize for excellence in philosophical research. In order to be eligible for the award, presenters must (1) deliver their own paper at the SWIP-Ireland conference, (2) identify as a woman, and (3) be either a postgraduate student in philosophy or be within 2 years of completion of their PhD and not yet hold a permanent academic post.

7th Annual Conference and General Meeting of SWIP-Ireland

Gender & Philosophy

26-28 April, 2019

Dublin City University, All Hallows Campus, Dublin 9, Ireland

To register: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/7th-annual-conference-and-general-meeting-of-swip-ireland-tickets-60119434848

Conference Programme

Friday 26th April 2019

Location: Purcell House Room G02

9.30-10.00

Registration and Reception (hosted by DCU Women in Leadership Action Group). Welcome address by Dr Maeve O’Brien, Head of the School of Human Development

10.00-10.30

Charlotte Witt, University of New Hampshire, USA - ‘The Profession of Philosophy. Reasons for Optimism’

10.30-11.30

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Eileen Brennan, Dublin City University, Ireland

Paul Giladi, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK - ‘Facing Up to the Harder Problem of Social Ontology: Sundering Identity’

Valeria Venditti, University College Cork, Ireland - ‘Anamnesis of Gender: Reminiscence, Emergence and the Relational Way’

11.45-13.15

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Noirin MacNamara, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Luke Elson, University of Reading, UK - ‘Mansplaining in (Feminist) Philosophy’

Johanna Kavanagh, NUI Galway, Ireland - 'Binaries: Not Teaching Sappho versus Plato'

Charlotte Knowles, University of Groningen, the Netherlands - ‘Beyond Adaptive Preferences: Rethinking Women’s Complicity in Their Own Subordination’

14.45-16.15

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Holly Hartman, University College Dublin, Ireland

Vidya Venkatesh, King’s College, University of Cambridge, UK - ‘Paranoia and the Performativity of Consent: Queering McKinnon’s Feminist Jurisprudence’

Riin Kõiv, University of Tartu, Estonia - ‘Philosophical (De)construction of Genetic Causes’

Joanna Hodge, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK - ‘Temporality: Feminist Critique, Time, and Materialization

16.30-18.00

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Professor Maria Baghramian, University College Dublin

Keynote: Charlotte Witt, University of New Hampshire, USA - “What is Gender Essentialism?”

Saturday 27th April 2019

10.00-11.30

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Aislinn O’Donnell, Maynooth University, Ireland

Sarah Gorman, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA - ‘Prenatal Testing and Selective Abortion: Maintaining a Future for Disability’

Noirin McNamara, Queen’s University Belfast, UK - ‘Judith Butler’s Embodied and Interdependent Concept of Political Subjectivity: Contesting Abortion Stigma Based on Archetypal Constructs of the Feminine’

Nicole Miglio, San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy and Andrea Raimondi, Northwestern Italian Philosophy Consortium, Italy - ‘Male Pregnancy, Gender, and Body as Situation’

Purcell House Room G02

Chair: Mette Lebech, Maynooth University, Ireland

Zuzanna Jusińska, University of Warsaw, Poland - ‘Grammatical Gender Trouble’

Alissa MacMillan, University of Antwerp, Belgium - ‘Hobbes, Milton, Gender, and Hierarchy’

Clara Wisenfeld Paine, University of Sheffield, UK - ‘Hopkins’ “Rethinking Sadomasochism: Feminism, Interpretation, and Simulation” and Vadas’ Reply’

11.45-12.45

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Alissa MacMillan, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Mary Gregg, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA - ‘License-like Fragmentation: The Bad Behavior of Visual Propaganda’

Marzena Adamiak, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences - 'The Lived Experience of Gender: Thinking of Metaphysics and Politics through Feminist Phenomenology'

12.45-14.15 Lunch Break and AGM

14.15-15.45

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Katherine Furman, University College Cork, Ireland

EL Putnam, NUI Galway, Ireland - ‘Milk Drunk: From Mother as Metaphor to a Feminist Ethics of the Maternal’

Suki Finn, University of Southhampton, UK - ‘Methodology for the Metaphysics of Pregnancy’

M. Laurel-Leigh Meierdiercks, University of South Florida, USA - ‘Relational Ontology and Ecofeminist Liberation’

16.00-17.30

Purcell House Room G01

Chair: Aislinn O’Donnell, Maynooth University, Ireland

Keynote: Christine Battersby, University of Warwick - ‘Cavarero, Kant and “Somebody to Lean On”: Verona, Königsberg and the Relational Self’

19.00 Conference Dinner

La Cave Wine Bar & Restaurant, 28 South Anne Street, Dublin 2

Sunday 28th April 2019

Purcell House Room G02

10.00-11.30

Chair: Noirin MacNamara, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco, United States Naval Academy, Stockdale Centre for Ethics - ‘Intimate Partner Violence and Moral Damage’

Emily McWilliams, Duke Kunshan University, Jiangsu, China - ‘Testimonial Injustice: Beyond Credibility Deficits’

Valentina Surace, University of Messina, Italy - ‘Judith Butler and the Fiction of Gender’

11.45-13.15

Purcell House Room G02

Chair: Eileen Brennan, Dublin City University, Ireland

Keynote: Katherine O’Donnell, University College Dublin, Ireland - ‘Confessions of a Feminist Misogynist: What Do We Think About Women?’

13.15-13.30

Awarding of Maria Baghramian Prize and close of conference

The Society for Women in Philosophy, Ireland

would like to announce the

7th Annual Conference and General Meeting of SWIP-Ireland

26-28 April, 2019

Dublin City University, Ireland

Conference Theme: Gender and Philosophy

SWIP-Ireland invites abstracts for papers that engage with the topic of gender and philosophy, broadly construed, from all philosophical traditions and approaches.

The confirmed keynote speakers are Charlotte Witt (University of New Hampshire), Christine Battersby (University of Warwick), and Katherine O’Donnell (University College Dublin). The conference particularly welcomes papers that engage with themes from their work on the question of Gender and Philosophy, including:

1. oThe Metaphysics of Gender (Witt, 2011)
2. oFeminist Metaphysics (Battersby, 1998)
3. oGender and Identity: contemporary and historical perspectives (O’Donnell 2014, O’Donnell and Giffney, 2008)
4. oThe Gender Dimension of Creative Genius and Arts (Battersby, 1990)
5. oGender essentialism and gender universalism (Witt 2011)
6. oThe social construction of gender
7. oGender and justice

Papers engaging with other thinkers and areas of philosophy, relevant to the general theme of the conference, are also welcome. The topics may include but are not limited to:

• Gender and the practical dimensions of philosophy
• Gender and the philosophy of education
• Gender and political philosophy
• Gender and the philosophy of law
• Gender and the philosophy of body
• Gender and the philosophy of human emotions
• Gender and the lived experiences of women

Submission Guidelines:

Abstracts for 20-minute presentations (500 words max), in Word document should be prepared for blind review (together with a separate cover sheet, which includes the author’s name and contact details) and emailed to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by March 8th 2019.

The successful applicants will be notified in the week of March 24, 2019.