The Canon Revisited: Women Philosophers.

Call for Abstracts

5th Braga Colloquium in the History of Moral and Political Philosophy, University of Minho (Braga, Portugal)

20-21 January 2020

The Canon Revisited: Women Philosophers

Keynote speakers this year will be:

Professor Sandrine Bergès (Bilkent University)

Professor Ruth Hagengruber (University of Paderborn)

The Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society of the University of Minho is pleased to announce the 5th Braga Colloquium in the History of Moral and Political Philosophy, an international annual conference to be held every year in January at the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal. The purpose of this conference series is to promote the study of the tradition of political and moral philosophy and its legacy in shaping our institutions, culture and beliefs.

In the last few decades, historians of philosophy have taken a keen interest in women philosophers from the past. One would expect them to be very few, given the historical hurdles women have met with in all areas of academy and all areas of public life, throughout history. But they have not been as few as that after all. And their intellectual output has been achieved in the context of the philosophical discussions of their times, in communication with male philosophers. Which suggests that the absence of women philosophers is the result of a selection, and not the mere reflection of an actual absence. A canon of western philosophers has been constituted in which only male philosophers appear, especially when it comes to philosophy before the second half of the 20th century. This means that you can have proficiency in the discipline without ever having studied or even read a philosophical text written by a woman. Our aim in this colloquium is both to contribute to the movement of retrieval and evaluation of women philosophers which is already underway and to deepen our understanding of the reasons, be they societal or philosophical, for the all male canon one is confronted with when looking at the discipline’s past. We also want to challenge the invisibility of contemporary work carried out by non-male philosophers within moral and political philosophy or more broadly relevant to understand such issues.

Thus, in this colloquium we hope to discuss themes such as, but not limited to, the following:

– Women in the history of philosophy

– The idea of a canon

– Contemporary philosophy from the point of view of a history of exclusion of women

– Feminist history of philosophy

– Feminist criticisms of traditional moral theories

– Feminist perspectives on sex and gender

– Social ontology: race, gender and disability

– Language and gender

The Colloquium welcomes original explorations of these and related topics.

Members of socially under-represented collectives are especially encouraged to apply.

Abstract submission:

Abstract proposals no longer than 500 words prepared for blind review, along with 5 keywords.

Please provide your name, contact information, affiliation, and a short 2-3 line bio.

Proposals must be sent via a Submission Form which can be accessed in the conference’s website here: https://bragacolloquium.weebly.com/submission.html

Further queries can be directed to bragacolloquium@ilch.uminho.pt

Deadline for abstract submissions: November 17, 2019.

Notifications of acceptance: December 1, 2019.

The official language of the conference is English.

Information about registration, program, accommodation and travelling is available on the conference’s website.