​In this episode, Haley speaks with Huaping Lu-Adler, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, about her new book titled Kant, Race, and Racism: Views from Somewhere. In the course of our conversation about the book, we discuss what it means to philosophize from a particular perspective, the compatibility of Kant's moral theory and his racist claims, the ways that our contemporary philosophical canon has its origins in Kant's writings, and the importance of community for philosophical work. 

Allais, Lucy. 2016. “Kant’s Racism.” Philosophical Papers 45 (1–2): 1–36.
Bernasconi, Robert. 2001. “Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race.” Race, edited by Robert Bernasconi, 11–36. Oxford: Blackwell. 
Bernasconi, Robert. 2002. “Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism.” In Philosophers on Race: Critical Essays, edited by Julie Ward and Tommy Lott, 145–66. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mills, Charles. 2005. “Kant’s Untermenschen.” In Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, edited by Andrew Valls, 169–93. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Mills, Charles. 2014. “Kant and Race, Redux.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 35 (1–2): 125–57.
Park, Peter. 2013. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830. Albany: SUNY Press.
Lu-Adler, Huaping. 2022. “Kant on Lazy Savagery, Racialized.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (2): 253–75.
Lu-Adler, Huaping. 2023. Kant, Race, and Racism: Views from Somewhere. New York & London: Oxford University Press. 

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In this episode, Olivia speaks with Allauren Samantha Forbes, an assistant professor in philosophy and gender and social justice at McMaster University. We discuss the thought of the French philosopher and novelist Madeleine de Scudéry, who lived from 1607 to 1701. Though most historians of philosophy know Scudéry for her later philosophical dialogues, our conversation focuses on an earlier publication: 1642’s Illustrious Women or Heroic Harangues. Allauren argues that this collection of fictional speeches by real women from antiquity – all of whom are limited in some way by hierarchical power structures – is an educational philosophical text that articulates various manifestations of patriarchal power and exemplifies ways of subverting it. We also talk about ideas for teaching Scudéry and Allauren’s own background as a philosopher working in the history of feminism. 

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Bibliography

Selected texts by Scudéry

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Les femmes illustres, ou Les harangues héroïques, 2 vols., Paris: Quiney et de Sercy, 1644. (French edition)

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Les femmes illustres or The heroick harangues of the illustrious women written in French by the exquisite pen of Monsieur de Scuddery governour of Nostre Dam. Translated by James Innes. Edinburgh: printed by Thomas Brown James Glen and John Weir book sellers, anno Adom. 1681. Available at http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A58878.0001.001. (17th-century partial English translation)

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues, edited and translated by Jane Donawerth and Julie Strongson. In The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. (21st-century scholarly partial translation)

Early Modern Philosophy: An Anthology, edited by Lisa Shapiro and Marcy P. Lascano. Broadview Press, 2021. (Textbook that contains translated excerpts of some of Scudéry’s works)


Other texts mentioned

Astell, Mary. Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke & Duchess of Mazarine’s Case; which is also consider’d. London: Printed for John Nutt near Stationers-Hall, 1700.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

In this episode, Haley speaks with Dwight K. Lewis Jr., assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of Minnesota. We talk about the life and works of the 18th century philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo, including his account of kinds of prejudice, and his views on justice as a tool and paradigm for reasoning. We also talk about the different contexts and manifestations of political resistance, and the need for varied mediums for philosophical ideas. 
 
Bibliography 

• Anton Wilhelm Amo, Inaugural Dissertation on the Impassivity of the Human Mind (1734). 
• Anton Wilhelm Amo, Philosophical Disputation Containing a Distinct Idea of those Things that Pertain either to the Mind or to Our Living and Organic Body (1734).  

*Both the original Latin and English translations of both texts are available in 

• Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body, edited and translated by Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith. Oxford University Press: 2020. 
• Allauren Forbes, “Prejudice as Viciousness: Marie de Gournay and Anton Wilhelm Amo”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2023).
• Justin E.H. Smith, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy. Princeton University Press: 2015. 

 
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In this episode, Olivia speaks with Jorge Sanchez-Perez, a former post-doctoral fellow in the Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy project who is currently an assistant professor in philosophy at the University of Alberta. We discuss Jorge’s post-doctoral research on the Huarochirí manuscript, which is one of the few surviving records of indigenous Andean philosophy in the Quechua language, and talk about the metaphysical ideas Jorge has worked to uncover in the text. Jorge also offers some advice for people interested in studying indigenous philosophy in an academic context that can sometimes be hostile to indigenous methodologies and traditions.

Notes and Further Reading
Primary Text 
Huarochirí Manuscript – available in the original Quechua and English and Spanish translations

​Figures Discussed
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala – a Quechua nobleman known for chronicling Andean culture and history from the Incan Imperial perspective
Francisco de Ávila – the “extirpator of idolatries” who commissioned the Huarochirí manuscript to help him fight against local indigenous beliefs, and in doing so inadvertently created a record of those same indigenous traditions
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega – a half-Incan, half-Spanish author known for his accounts of Inca history and culture
Vine Deloria Jr. – a twentieth-century Native American philosopher of education

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In this episode, Olivia speaks with Phil Yaure – assistant professor of philosophy at Virginia Tech University – about the political philosophy of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born into slavery, but eventually became one of the most influential black abolitionists of the 19th century after escaping his enslaved condition and learning to read and write. Phil’s research focuses on Douglass as a political philosopher, with special concern for Douglass’s conception of the US constitution as an anti-slavery document and his belief that citizenship is a function of one’s contribution to a polity (in contrast to thinking of citizenship as a status that is conferred upon someone by the powers of the state). Phil argues that Douglass considers abolitionist resistance itself to be a way of contributing to American society, which leads to the conclusion that enslaved people fighting against the injustice of slavery make themselves American citizens in doing so. We also discuss the philosophical value of the autobiography genre, and Phil offers listeners some recommendations for where to begin if they want to incorporate Frederick Douglass into their history of philosophy courses. 

Further Reading
Autobiographies:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (by Douglass, originally published 1845)
My Bondage and My Freedom (by Douglass, originally published 1855)
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (by Douglass, originally published 1881 and revised 1892)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (by Harriet Jacobs, originally published 1861)

Select Speeches by Douglass:
“The Free Negro’s Place is in America” (delivered 1851)
“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (July 5 Speech) (delivered 1852)
“Claims of our Common Cause: Address of the Colored Convention held in Rochester, July 6-8, 1853” (delivered 1853)
Other Sources Mentioned:
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
Birthright Citizens, Martha S. Jones (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
Immigrants and the Right to Stay, Joseph H. Carens with Deborah Chasman (MIT Press, 2018)
Immigration and Democracy, Sarah Song (Oxford University Press, 2019) 

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In this episode, Haley Brennan speaks with Elliott Chen, New Narratives Post-Doc and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Xavier University starting Fall 2022, about his work on two early modern women philosophers of science: Émilie du Châtelet and Laura Bassi. We talk about du Châtelet’s arguments against essential gravity and Newtonian attraction, and Bassi’s experiments with electricity. We discuss the differences between undertaking a project on a figure like du Châtelet, for whom there is now a growing body of literature, versus a figure like Bassi, who has received almost no philosophical attention. We talk about why it is worth taking on projects on figures like Bassi, how you get going on this kind of project, and the variety of work you can do. This episode is the second in a series of interviews with New Narratives Postdocs, past and present. 
 
Select Bibliography 
Émilie du Châtelet, Foundations of Physics (1740) 
Laura Bassi, De acqua corpore naturali element aliorum corporum parte universi (1732, untranslated)
Monique Frize, Laura Bassi and Science in 18th Century Europe: The Extraordinary Life and Role of Italy’s Pioneering Female Professor. Heidelberg, Springer: 2013. 
Laura Bassi: The World’s First Woman Professor in Natural Philosophy, edited by Luisa Cifarelli and Raffaella Simili. Cham, Springer: 2020. 

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In this episode, Haley Brennan speaks with Dalitso Ruwe, Assistant Professor of Black Political Thought at Queen’s University, about his project of locating and understanding genealogies of Black and African philosophy. We talk about 18th century ontological and Biblical arguments against slavery, the relationship between practical and intellectual revolutions, and what it means to disrupt a system. We also discuss the value of each person’s own philosophical genealogy, and how to find philosophical content in a text.  This episode is the first of a series of interviews with New Narratives Postdocs, past and present.
 
Select Bibliography 
Frederick Douglass, “Letter from Frederick Douglass to his old master: extracted from the ‘North star’."
 
The Derrick Bell Reader, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. 
 
James W. C. Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith: or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington, Pastor of a Presbyterian Church, New York, Formerly a Slave in the State of Maryland, United States
 
Negro Orators and their Orations, edited by Carter G. Woodson. 
 
Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787-1901, edited by Philip S. Foner and Robert Branham. 
 
Early Negro Writing, 1760-1837, edited by Dorothy Porter. 
 
Angela Davis, Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire. 
 
John Henrik Clarke, Critical Lessons in Slavery and the Slave Trade: Essential Studies and Commentaries on Slavery, in General, and the African Slave Trade, in Particular. 

Elizabeth McHenry, Forgotten Reader: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies

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In this episode, Haley Brennan talks with Kathryn Sophia Belle, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University and founder of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers, about Black Feminist critiques of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. We talk about her upcoming book on the topic, with chapters on Claudia Jones, Lorraine Hansberry, Maria Stewart, Anna Julia Cooper, and Audre Lorde among others. We also talk about the philosophical-historical origins of the concept of intersectionality and the triple oppression thesis, what it looks like to offer alternative accounts to Beauvoir’s, and creating the spaces and projects that you need in academic philosophy. 
 
Bibliography 
Kathryn Sophia Belle, “Interlocking, Intersecting, and Intermeshing: Critical Engagements with Black and Latina Feminist Paradigms of Identity and Oppression” in Critical Philosophy of Race, Vol. 8, Nos 1-2, 2020, pages 165-198.
Kathryn Sophia Belle, “Maria Stewart (August 20, 1829 – August 19, 1834)” in 400 Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (Random House).
Kathryn Sophia Belle, “Being a Black Woman Philosopher: Reflections on Founding the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers” in Hypatia, Volume 26, Issue 2, Spring 2011, pages 429-437.
Claudia Jones, “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of Negro Women” (1949). 
Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South (1892). 
bell hooks, “True Philosophers: Beauvoir and bell”, in Beauvoir and Western Thought from Plato to Butler, edited by Shannon M. Mussett and William S. Wilkerson (2012). 
Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftal (1995). 
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower. Grand Central Publishing: 1993. 
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents. Grand Central Publishing: 1998. 
Elizabeth Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (1988). 
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949). 
Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. 110- 114. 2007

In this episode, Olivia Branscum speaks with Nic Bommarito, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University. We discuss the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), focusing especially on what she has to teach us about the moral value of attention and the true uses of education. Nic and I also talk about his work in Tibetan Buddhist thought and his experiences studying figures and traditions that have been excluded from mainstream histories of philosophy.
Further Reading
Primary Texts (by Simone Weil)
“Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God” (written c. 1942, published in Waiting for God)
La Pesanteur et la Grâce (available in English translation as Gravity and Grace) (1947)
L'enracinement : Prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l'être humain (available in English translation as The Need for Roots) (1949)
Attente de Dieu (available in English Translation as Waiting for God) (1950)
Secondary Texts
 “Private Solidarity” by Nicolas Bommarito (2015)
nner Virtue by Nicolas Bommarito (Oxford University Press, 2018)
​Seeing Clearly: A Buddhist Guide to Life by Nicolas Bommarito (Oxford University Press, 2020)

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