MAP Cambridge Conference
18 June 2018
SG1, Alison Richard Building, Sidgwick Site, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
Power and Identity: Philosophical Reflections on Liberation
Organisers: Laura Brassington and Azita Chellappoo
Conference Programme
To listen to the conference recordings, click on the links below:
| 10.00-10.45 | 'Why We Need to Politicise Philosophy' - Astrid Fly Oredsson |
| 10.45-11.30 | 'Is Conceptualizing Africa as a Unified Political Body a Colonial Chimera?' - Bulelani Jili |
| 12.00-12.45 | 'Race and Representation matter: On the case of South Africa's first black African woman to receive a PhD in Philosophy' - Zinhle Mncube |
| 13.45-14.30 | 'My Pronouns are They/Them: Non-Binary Trans* Inclusion and Extracted Speech' - Aiden Greenall |
| 14.30-15.15 | 'Race and Gender in the Scientific Institution: Basic History and Analysis' - Carmen Palacios-Berraquero |
| 15.45-16.30 | 'Fanon's Body: Oppression, Struggle, and Liberation' - Dr Komarine Romdenh-Romluc |
| 16.30-17.30 | Roundtable Discussion: Decolonisation Within & Beyond the Academy |
The Cambridge MAP Chapter is hosting a one-day conference on 18th June 2018. Following the success of the annual Cambridge Women in Philosophy conference, which in 2017 brought together more than forty attendees from across Europe and North America, we have broadened our scope and this year we are seeking to foreground more minority voices in academic philosophy.
As part of an international organisation with participations from Harvard to Manchester, each MAP Chapter is united by their broad aims to address (a) minority issues in the profession, (b) theoretical issues regarding philosophy of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, disability, native language, etc., and (c) philosophy done from minority perspectives. We will have four invited academic speakers and two slots for graduate students, who will be encouraged to submit papers for consideration. Each talk will last for approximately 30 minutes, followed by 15 minutes for discussion. At the end of the conference, participants and attendees are invited to share in a panel discussion/ roundtable session, which will be centred around the ‘Decolonise the Curriculum’ movement at Cambridge University, which is increasingly gaining traction within the Philosophy and HPS Departments.
The intended audience includes academics as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students from Gender Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, Classics, History, and History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge and London universities. We are aiming to cover a diversity of areas promoted by MAP, and are also seeking to foreground speakers committed to carrying out philosophy from minority perspectives.
Through our conference, we aim to explore and analyse the ways in which identity and power interact, and to engage with issues such as the epistemological power of identity categories, the characterisation of the intersections of power relations, and what liberation within the academy might look like. Additionally, by highlighting the work of contemporary philosophers of marginalised identities, we seek to secure space within philosophy for such work to thrive. We hope the conference will be a productive opportunity for students and researchers working in related fields to create research networks in an informal and interdisciplinary environment, and to hear about their colleagues’ work and present their own.
Our conference will implement the BPA/SWIP Good Practice Scheme. We would like to provide a designated quiet space, and transcripts of talks and discussion.
We would like to thank MAP International and University of Cambridge School of Humanities and Social Sciences for their generous support.
