Women Philosophers I

Session Submission Type: Panel

Affiliate Organization: Working Group on Philosophy and Intellectual History

Brief Description

The barriers that women have faced in philosophy are no secret. In the Soviet and Slavic context, women have historically held posts at major philosophical institutions and were integrated into the academic system, but at the same time are rarely represented in the scholarly mechanisms that claim and record the “history of philosophy” for posterity. Case in point: of two recent major publishing initiatives on philosophy in Russia in the 20th century–“Philosophy in Russia in the First Half of the 20th Century” (2008-2017) and “Philosophy of Russia in the Second Half of the 20th Century” (2009-2019)—neither includes a single volume dedicated to a female philosopher. Panelists in this pair of panels seek to address and analyze the ideas of female thinkers as important and understudied contributions to the history of philosophy broadly construed.

Tatiana Levina’s paper argues for the importance of a gender lens for philosophical research on contemporary Russophone thought, employing the “Philosophy Steamer” as a case study. Isabel Jabobs’ work explores Ukrainian-French philosopher Rachel Bespaloff's conception of embodied time, situating Bespaloff both in the milieu of interwar Paris and in dialogue with Gilles Deleuze. Teresa Obolevich looks at the work of Myrrha Lot-Borodine, one of the first Orthodox women theologians, and presents her ideas of neopatristic synthesis on equal footing with those of Georges Florovsky. Anastasia Pestinova will address the role of Julia Kristeva’s Bulgarian origin in her positioning herself in French intellectual society, with the aimr of exploring what Roland Barthes calls l'étrangère.

Sub Unit

• Religion, Philosophy

Chair

• Alyssa DeBlasio, Dickinson College

Papers

• Women on the Philosopher’s Steamboat: A Gender Lens - Tatiana Levina, Independent Scholar

• Rachel Bespaloff: On Embodied Time - Isabel Jacobs, Queen Mary, U of London (UK)

• Myrrha Lot-Borodine and Russian Religious Philosophy - Maria T Obolewicz

• Étrangère in the Thought of Julia Kristeva - Anastasia Pestinova, U of Verona (Italy)

Discussant

• Trevor Wilson, Virginia Tech