Higher Seminar: Feminist philosophy: Time, history and the transition of thought

In this seminar, the new anthology Feminist philosophy: Time, history, and the transformation of thought (Södertörn studies in intellectual and cultural history 2023) will be presented by one of the editors, Johanna Sjöstedt.

The publication is based on a four-year network, the aims of which were to a) research the philosophical roots of feminist theory; b) emphasize the importance of time and history as analytical concepts for feminist theory; c) scrutinize philosophy from a feminist perspective, yet insist on the importance of philosophy for feminist theory and the feminist movement today d) create a forum where these concerns were at the center, not the margin of inquiry.

Although feminist philosophy is now a recognized field in the institution of philosophy, a tension between the terms feminism and philosophy still seems to persist. From the perspective of philosophy, feminist philosophy might seem too committed to political change; from the perspective of feminism, the practice of philosophy might seem too far removed from the pressing concerns of injustice in ordinary life.

Feminist theory understood as an interdisciplinary tradition of texts that interrogates gender, sexuality, and other similar categories in critical perspectives, has a rather paradoxical relationship to time and history. If philosophy generally takes an omnipresent ahistorical point of view, feminist theory rather tends to stress what Donna Haraway calls “situated knowledges”: the historical, the local, which are first and foremost concerned with questions of transformation. However, the emphasis of historical situatedness is not necessarily accompanied by an awareness of or interest in the historicity of the concepts that are employed in making such claims. Rather, with the aim of changing oppressive conditions feminist theory runs the risk of overemphasizing the present and the future at the expense of the past.

This anthology argues that feminist theory needs the modes of reflection developed in the humanities in general and in disciplines such as philosophy, the history of ideas and literary studies specifically.
During the seminar the ideas behind the network and experiences from the seminars will be presented, together with the anthology based on it.

The anthology is available OA:
https://bibl-app.sh.se/pub.../home/publication/diva2_1762191

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Johanna Sjöstedt holds double MA-degrees in History of Ideas and Gender Studies from the University of Gothenburg. Specializing in the history of feminist philosophy and theory, she is interested in how notions of gender, time, and history intersect in feminist theory and how feminist theory transforms modern notions of temporality and change. Her work has appeared in NORA, Slagmark, and Ideas in history. She is also the editor of the anthology Vad är en kvinna? Språk, materialitet, situation (Daidalos, 2021).