Extending New Narratives

We are engaged in both retrieving philosophical works of women and individuals from other marginalized groups and sustaining the presence of these figures in the history of philosophy. Our overall goal is to help change the standards of practice in philosophy to enable it to become more inclusive and diverse by changing the ways we do history of philosophy.  Achieving this goal requires collective action, and we are not only working with one another to meet our objectives, we are also committed to coordinating with others who share our aims. 
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Our international partnership is comprised of 13 academic institutions, with co-investigators at each institution: Simon Fraser University (Lisa Shapiro (PI) and Nic Bommarito), McGill University (Marguerite Deslauriers and Lisa Shapiro), University of Western Ontario (Corey Dyck), University of Guelph (Patricia Sheridan), Duke University (Andrew Janiak), University of Pennsylvania (Karen Detlefsen), Columbia University (Christia Mercer), University of Wisconsin-Madison (Steven Nadler), Monash University (Jacqueline Broad), University of Sydney (Dalia Nassar), Jyväskylä University (Martina Reuter), Université de Paris X-Nanterre (Anne-Lise Rey), and Université de Lyon 3-Jean Moulin (Marie-Frédérique Pellegrin). Chike Jeffers at Dalhousie University is also a co-investigator (although Dalhousie is not yet a partner institution). We also have over 70 academic scholars and librarians as collaborators. 

The project has an historical scope that includes the medieval period, the Renaissance, early modern period (17th and 18th centuries), and the 19th and early 20th centuries (up to 1940). We've identified four philosophical themes that will help structure the new narratives being developed. Three are familiar: metaphysics and epistemology; ethics, social, and political philosophy; and philosophy of mind and philosophy of education. The fourth, though less familiar, is essential to achieving our goal of making philosophy more inclusive: the metaphilosophical issues of (a) what counts as philosophy; (b) what counts as a philosophical work; and (c) the purposes of the history of philosophy. 
​Through the menu bar at the top of the site, you can learn more about us and about how we are working to achieve our specific objectives:
  1. ​Developing new narratives in the history of philosophy from the medieval period through the early 20th century by recovering the work of women and other neglected thinkers, making salient a range of neglected themes, and, for the first time, fully and sustainably integrating women and other neglected figures into the history of philosophy. 
  2. Extending an international research network of scholars, students and academic institutions supporting research on women and other neglected thinkers of the past.
  3. Building a network of open-access digital resources, supported by academic libraries, to aid future research along with the incorporation of findings into curriculum, and to preserve the diversity of our intellectual past.
  4. Developing and shaping research resources articulating new narratives both by launching an online open-access scholarly journal focused on neglected figures and themes, and by partnering with publishers to issue new scholarly editions and edited volumes of thematically unified essays. 
  5. Training a new generation of scholars to develop lines of inquiry on neglected figures in the history of philosophy.
  6. Increasing awareness amongst the general public of long-neglected aspects of our intellectual past through public talks, podcasts, blogposts, and interviews, as well as informing secondary school curriculum.​
You can find out how to get involved, or just to get in touch, on our home page.
Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy is a Partnership project supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and our partners. It builds on the work of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development project 'New Narratives in the History of Philosophy'. ​​

Partner Institutions

Additional Financial Support

Header image courtesy of the United States Geological Survey