Feminist Epistemologies

FAIN: FS-23298-02

Penn State (University Park, PA 16802-1503)
Nancy A. Tuana (Project Director: March 2002 to August 2004)

A five-week seminar for college teachers on feminist approaches to epistemology and their relationship to traditional modes of philosophical inquiry.

Associated Products

Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (Book)
Title: Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance
Editor: Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana
Abstract: Offering a wide variety of philosophical approaches to the neglected philosophical problem of ignorance, this groundbreaking collection builds on Charles Mills's claim that racism involves an inverted epistemology, an epistemology of ignorance. Contributors explore how different forms of ignorance linked to race are produced and sustained and what role they play in promoting racism and white privilege. They argue that the ignorance that underpins racism is not a simple gap in knowledge, the accidental result of an epistemological oversight. In the case of racial oppression, ignorance often is actively produced for purposes of domination and exploitation. But as these essays demonstrate, ignorance is not simply a tool of oppression wielded by the powerful. It can also be a strategy for survival, an important tool for people of color to wield against white privilege and white supremacy. The book concludes that understanding ignorance and the politics of such ignorance should be a key element of epistemological and social/political analyses, for it has the potential to reveal the role of power in the construction of what is known and provide a lens for the political values at work in knowledge practices.
Year: 2007
Primary URL: http://www.sunypress.edu/p-4439-race-and-epistemologies-of-igno.aspx
Publisher: SUNY Press
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: ISBN10: 0-7914

Feminist Epistemologies of Ignorance (Book)
Title: Feminist Epistemologies of Ignorance
Editor: Shannon Sullivan
Editor: Nancy Tuana
Abstract: Introduction: Feminist Epistemologies of Ignorance - Hypatia 21:3 Hypatia 21.3 (2006) vii-ix Introduction: Feminist Epistemologies of Ignorance Nancy Tuana Shannon Sullivan. Feminist epistemologies of ignorance were born out of the realization that we cannot fully understand the complex practices of knowledge production and the variety of features that account for why something is known, without also understanding the practices that account for not knowing. Ignorance is a phenomenon that is often overlooked in traditional epistemological scholarship. Often assumed to be a simple lack of knowledge, a systematic study of ignorance is typically seen as irrelevant to epistemological concerns. The essays in this volume urge feminists to study ignorance far more attentively, for practices of ignorance are often intertwined with practices of oppression and exclusion. Given this, the study of ignorance is a valuable tool for liberatory epistemologies.
Year: 2006
Primary URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/hypatia/v021/21.3tuana01.html
Publisher: Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy
Type: Edited Volume

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