57th Conference: ARINA PISMENNY (University of Florida) - "Pansexuality: A Closer Look at Sexual Orientation"
For its 57th conference, PhiloSitué-es (formely known as “Fillosophie”) welcomes Arina Pismenny (University of Florida) for a conference entitled
Pansexuality: A Closer Look at Sexual Orientation
The presentation will take place on Friday, November 25 at 2 p.m., in room W-5215, UQAM
(455 René Lévesque Boulevard).
What is ‘sexual orientation’ for?’ is a question we need to answer when addressing a more seemingly basic one, ‘what is sexual orientation?’. The concept of sexual orientation is grounded in the concepts of sex and/or gender since it refers to the sex or gender of the individuals one is sexually attracted to. Typical categories of sexual orientation such as ’heterosexual’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘bisexual’ all rely on a sex or gender binary. Yet, it is now common practice to recognize sex and gender categories that transcend these binaries. Should our sexual orientation categories be revised to reflect sex and gender diversity? If so, how? Drawing on the example of pansexuality, I argue that they should. The reason is that because the point of reconstructing the concept of sexual orientation should be political: it should make it easier to argue for the protection of those who have been marginalized or discriminated against because their sexual attraction is other than heterosexual.
As a first concrete example, I will introduce you on how my research topic ‘Politics of Mathematics’ became an interesting background knowledge to apply to the support of young researchers in offering a variety of scientific methods.
As a second example of dealing with diversity and offering good practices for education and training I will introduce my fascination and my research on ethnomathematics.
This takes me to the core topic of my current research ‘Woke mathematics’ or how to deal with diversity in mathematics education.
Arina Pismenny is Assistant Instructional Professor in Philosophy. She earned her Ph.D. from City University of New York, The Graduate Center. Her research is primarily in moral psychology, ethics, and philosophy of sex and gender. Her recent projects include elucidating the relationship between romantic love and morality, analyzing the political and ontological dimensions of sex and sexual identities, and explaining the ways in which emotions can contribute to injustice. Arina Pismeny is author of The Moral Psychology of Love, co-edited with Berit Brogaard as part of the Moral Psychology of Emotions series by Mark Alfano, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield in 2022.
The conference is free.
56th Conference: KAREN FRANÇOIS (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - "Culture of Science"
For its 56th conference, PhiloSitué-es (formely known as “Fillosophie”) welcomes Karen François (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) for a conference entitled
Cultures of Science
The presentation will take place on Friday, October 7 at 2 p.m., in room W-5215 of UQAM
(455 René Lévesque Boulevard).
In this lecture I will start with an overview of my research career and my research output to take you to the topic of ‘Cultures of Science’ from my own perspective and my background in philosophy of science.
Central question I have to deal with, as a teacher in the Ba and Ma in Philosophy, and in managing support for young researchers (as the director of the doctoral training), is “How to deal with diversity”.
As a first concrete example, I will introduce you on how my research topic ‘Politics of Mathematics’ became an interesting background knowledge to apply to the support of young researchers in offering a variety of scientific methods.
As a second example of dealing with diversity and offering good practices for education and training I will introduce my fascination and my research on ethnomathematics.
This takes me to the core topic of my current research ‘Woke mathematics’ or how to deal with diversity in mathematics education.
Karen François is a professor of philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the director of the Centre of Logic and Philosophy of Science (VUB).
She is a philosopher of science, studying the role of mathematics and of statistics in society, related to cultures and education. She is teaching philosophy of science (with an emphasis on bias in science e.g. gender, culture, ethics, integrity,…), ontology, history of mathematical practices, phenomenology, ethics and integrity.
Karen François is the director of the Doctoral School of Human Sciences (VUB) and is co-founder of the Flanders interuniversity network on doctoral education FLAMES (Flanders Network for Methodology and Statistics) supporting PhD candidates with a diverse offer of seminars in methodology. She is member of the international group PRIDE – PRofessionals In Doctoral Education and one of the co-authors of De Grande, H., Den Haese, J. & Francois, K. (2016).
Understanding the role of professionals: an HR perspective. In Zinner, L. (ed.). Professionals in doctoral education (pp. 35-62). Vienna: University of Vienna - Resch Druck
The conference is free.
55th Conference: Andrea J. PITTS (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) - "U.S. Latina/x Abolitionist Pasts & Futures"
For its 55th conference, PhiloSitué-es (formely known as “Fillosophie”) welcomes Andrea J. Pitts (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) for a conference entitled
"U.S. Latina/x Abolitionist Pasts & Futures".
In this presentation, Andrea J. Pitts turns to sources from the history of U.S. Latina political activism to develop a framing of prison abolitionism from within these feminist trajectories. In particular, Pitts examines archival sources that demonstrate Mexican American women's involvement in prisoners' rights organizing during the 1970s and 1980s, with such work reconfiguring the activist and scholarly contributions of Latina/x and Chicana/x feminist philosophers such as María Lugones and Gloria Anzaldúa.
Bio
Andrea Pitts (they/them) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and they are affiliate faculty of the university’s Department of Africana Studies, Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies, Latin American Studies Program, School of Data Science, Social Aspects of Health Initiative, and Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
Their research interests include Latin American and U.S. Latinx philosophy, critical philosophy of race, feminist philosophy, disability studies, and critical prison studies, and they have taught graduate and undergraduate courses on topics such as Latina/x feminist philosophy, queer migration studies, prison abolitionism, critical transgender politics, and feminist epistemology.
Andrea is author of Nos/Otras: Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Multiplicitous Agency, and Resistance (2021), and co-editor with Mark Westmoreland of Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson (2019) and Theories of the Flesh: Latinx and Latin American Feminisms, Transformation, and Resistance with Mariana Ortega and José M. Medina (2020).
Their other publications appear in The Journal of Philosophy of Disability, Hypatia, IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, Radical Philosophy Review, Disability and American Philosophies, Decolonizing American Philosophy, Inter-American Journal of Philosophy and Comparative Studies in Asian and Latin American Philosophies. Lastly, Andrea co-organizes, along with Perry Zurn, the Trans Philosophy Project, a professional and research initiative dedicated to supporting trans, nonbinary, and gender variant philosophers.
Here's an additional open-access article: Andrea Pitts. 2019. “‘The Atlas of Our Skin and Bone and Blood’: Disability, Ablenationalism, and the War on Drugs.” Genealogy 3 (4): 1-16.