While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most ...

Dislocating Cultures takes aim at the related notions of nation, identity, and tradition to show how Western and Third World scholars have misrepresented Third World cultures and feminist agendas.

This review looks at Sarah Hoagland's Lesbian Ethics from the position of a lesbian who is also a cultural participant in a colonized heterosexualist culture within the powerful context of its colonizing heterosexualist culture . From this position separation from heterosexualism acquires great complexity since the position described is that of a plural self. In Lesbian Ethics lesbian community is the community of separation where demoralization is avoided by auto-koenonous selves. Because heterosexualism is not a cross-cultural or international system but (...) a series of systems some of which dominate over others and threaten their extinction , lesbian pluralism cannot be achieved through the inclusion of lesbians of different cultures, classes and situations in a separating group. Neither the need for nor the value of separation from heterosexualism are undermined by the increased complexity that this position adds to the analysis. (shrink)

This review looks at Sarah Hoagland's Lesbian Ethics from the position of a lesbian who is also a cultural participant in a colonized heterosexualist culture within the powerful context of its colonizing heterosexualist culture. From this position separation from heterosexualism acquires great complexity since the position described is that of a plural self. In Lesbian Ethics lesbian community is the community of separation where demoralization is avoided by auto‐koenonous selves. Because heterosexualism is not a Cross‐cultural or international system but a (...) series of systems some of which dominate over others and threaten their extinction, lesbian pluralism cannot be achieved through the inclusion of lesbians of different cultures, classes and situations in a separating group. Neither the need for nor the value of separation from heterosexualism are undermined by the increased complexity that this position adds to the analysis. (shrink)

Visible Identities critiques the critiques of identity and of identity politics and argues that identities are real but not necessarily a political problem. Moreover, the book explores the material infrastructure of gendered identity, the experimental aspects of racial subjectivity for both whites and non-whites, and in several chapters looks specifically at Latio identity.

INTRODUCTION Reopening a Discussion The empiricist-derived epistemology that has directed most social and natural scientific inquiry for the last three ...

Mar'a Lugones, one of the premiere figures in feminist philosophy, has at last collected some of her most famous essays, as well as some lesser-known gems, into her first book.

Introduction: find your way -- Orientations toward objects -- Sexual orientation -- The orient and other others -- Conclusion: disorientation and queer objects.

A new collection of critical essays from bell hooks takes as its theme the deep longing for a critical voice. I explore some motifs that operate across the divergent topics of her essays. She writes of the dangers of commodification, of "reassuring" images, of individualism. I also explore the paths of hooks's uniquely black postmodernism: her critique of various essentialisms, her philosophically important conception of subjectivity, and her beautiful and powerful transformations of multiple discourses.

Less than one percent of U.S. philosophers are Asian American. This essay contends that the low percentage cannot be fully explained by considerations of demographics, immigration, and "Asian culture." Completeness of explanation requires reference to racial politics and Orientalism in their historic and national dynamics. It also requires reference to various kinds of identity derogation specific to the academy and to philosophy, in particular. The essay concludes with reflection on how the "model minority" discourse adds another layer of complication to (...) the way Asian American philosophers and philosophy students negotiate their way through the academy. (shrink)

I argue that Nelson's feminist transformation of empiricism provides the basis of a dialogue across three currently competing feminist epistemologies: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theories, and postmodern feminism, a dialogue that will result in a dissolution of the apparent tensions between these epistemologies and provide an epistemology with the openness and fluidity needed to embrace the concerns of feminists.