Women in Theory
“Women in Theory” is a growing group of theorists and philosophers who loosely identify as women. While some focus on gender, queer, feminist or trans theory, the majority work in areas that tend to be male-dominated (deconstruction, Marxism, Black studies, Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, political theory, classical philosophy, media theory, Latin American studies).
Women in Theory Symposium (March 19-20)
Scholars whose work emerges from distinct areas of critical theory and philosophy—deconstruction, Black studies, Marxism, psychoanalysis, classical philosophy, political theory, media theory—in short, areas of “theory” in which women are comparatively scarce, come together to engage with the problem of gender in philosophy and critical theory from and through their methodological and conceptual areas of interest.
WIT Book Forum
Book forum featuring Naomi Waltham-Smith’s Shattering Biopolitics: Militant Listening and the Sound of Life (Fordham University Press, 2021) with contributions from Daniele Lorenzini (U. of Warwick), Julie Beth Napolin (The New School), Michael Gallope (U. of Minnesota), Erin Graff Zivin (U. of Southern California).
Book forum featuring Zakiyyah Iman Jackson’s Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World (NYU Press, 2020), with contributions from Penelope Deutscher (Northwestern U.), Tavia Nyong’o (Yale U.), and Joshua Chambers-Letson (Northwestern U.).
In this special issue we propose an experiment: what would happen if “women” who work in “theory” (in the broadest, wildest sense of both terms) were to thematize and discuss the question of women in theory? How does this issue inflect literary studies and related fields? Here, scholars whose work emerges from distinct areas of critical theory and philosophy—deconstruction, Marxism, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, classical philosophy, political theory, media theory, in short: areas of “theory” in which women are comparatively scarce—come together to engage with the problem of gender in philosophy and critical theory from and through their methodological and conceptual areas of interest.
Cover image: Elena Cardona, INVENĪRE. From the series Other Topographies, 2017
