Mixed Race Studies

Philosophy and the Mixed Race Experience

Rowman & Littlefield
January 2016
350 pages
Size: 6 x 9
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4985-0942-8
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4985-0943-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4985-0944-2

Edited by:

Tina Fernandes Botts, Visiting Professor of Philosophy
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

Philosophy and the Mixed Race Experience is a collection of essays by mixed race philosophers about the mixed race experience. Each essay is meant to represent one of three possible things: (1) what the philosopher sees as the philosopher’s best work, (2) evidence of the possible impact of the philosopher’s mixed race experience on the philosopher’s work, or (3) the philosopher’s philosophical take on the mixed race experience. The book has two goals: (1) to collect together for the first time the work of professional, academic philosophers who have had the mixed race experience, and (2) to bring these essays together for the purpose of adding to the conversation on the question of the degree to which factical identity (that is, situated, phenomenological experience) and philosophical work may be related (i.e., in terms of theme, method, assumptions, traditions, etc.).

Table of Contents

• Foreword, by Linda Martín Alcoff
• Editor’s Introduction: Toward a Mixed Race Theory, by Tina Fernandes Botts
• Part 1: Mixed Race Political Theory
  • Chapter 1: Responsible Multiracial Politics, with a new postscript, by Ronald Robles Sundstrom
  • Chapter 2: Mixed Race Identity in Britain: Finding Our Roots in the Post Racial Era, by Gabriella Beckles-Raymond
• Part 2: Mixed Race Metaphilosophy
  • Chapter 3: Through the Looking Glass: What Philosophy Looks Like from the Inside When You’re Not Quite There, by Marina Oshana
  • Chapter 4: Being and Not Being, Knowing and Not Knowing, by Jennifer Lisa Vest
  • Chapter 5: A Mixed Race (Philosophical) Experience, by Tina Fernandes Botts
• Part 3: Mixed Race Ontology
  • Chapter 6: The Fluid Symbol of Mixed Race, by Naomi Zack
  • Chapter 7: On Being Mixed, by Linda Martín Alcoff
  • Chapter 8: Race and Ethnic Identity, by J.L.A. Garcia
• Part 4: Mixed Race and Major Figures
  • Chapter 9: Through a Glass, Darkly: A Mixed-Race Du Bois, by Celena Simpson
  • Chapter 10: German Chocolate: Why Philosophy is So Personal, by Timothy J. Golden
• Part 5: Mixed Race Ethics
  • Chapter 11: Who is Afraid of Racial and Ethnic Self-Cleansing? In Defense of the Virtuous Cosmopolitan, by Jason D. Hill
• Afterword, by Naomi Zack
• Epilogue, by Tina Fernandes Botts

Jennifer Lisa Vest to explore ‘post-racial present’ at Women’s and Gender Studies Symposium

Report: Faculty/Staff Newsletter
Illinois State University
2015-04-02

Rachel Hatch, Editor

Performing artist and scholar Jennifer Lisa Vest will be the keynote speaker for the 20th annual Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Symposium.

Vest will present Black Lives Matter: [Trans]Gender Violence, Disability, and Women in a ‘Post-racial,’ ‘Post-Sexist’ Present at 1 p.m. Friday, April 17, in the Bone Student Center. The talk is free and open to the public.

In celebration of the event, there will be a poetry reading at 7 p.m. Thursday April 16, at the University Galleries, 11 Uptown Circle, Normal.

Vest is a self-described “mixed-race queer feminist philosopher, poet, and artivist whose philopoetic works combine philosophy, poetry and feminist theories to provide intersectional analyses of social justice issues by explicating raced, gendered, and sexualized components of privilege, ablelism, and oppression.”…

Read the entire article here.

The Social Ontology of Race in the “Post-Racial” Era

The University of Memphis Department of Philosophy
7th Annual Philosophy Graduate Student Association Conference
2011-02-11 through 2011-02-12

Keynote Speaker

Jennifer Lisa Vest, Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of Central Florida

In the past several decades, mainstream philosophical discourse has examined the ontology of race from a number of philosophical vantage points. During this period, thinkers have called our philosophical attention to the widespread acknowledgment in the scientific community that the concept of race has no biological basis. However, African American scholars in a variety of disciplines have been debating the question of the reality of race since the late nineteenth century. Of particular import has been the question of the ontological currency of the concept of race apart from its dubious biological status.

In contemporary academic discourse, the social ontology of race is a vibrant and dynamic question with implications across various traditions and subfields within the discipline of philosophy in both the analytic and continental traditions and beyond. Interdisciplinary by nature, discussion surrounding this question has reverberations in companion disciplines such as ethnic studies, political theory, philosophy of law, history, feminist theory, queer theory, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.

Just what does it mean to be racialized as non-white in American culture today? To what extent does such a classification still carry negative connotations? How has the growing population of “mixed race” people affected how race is understood in America? How, if at all, has the election of our first black/ “mixed race” president changed the social ontology of race in America? Does this landmark event signify the onset of a “post-racial” era? How do these questions intersect with other issues of social ontology? These are the kinds of questions we hope to address in our 7th annual Philosophy Graduate Student Association conference at the University of Memphis. We invite philosophy papers on any of these topics, or any related topic. Interdisciplinary approaches are welcomed.

Deadline for submission of papers is January 1, 2011 (extended). Papers should be sent as Word documents not to exceed 12 double-spaced pages. Papers should be suitable for blind review, including a cover letter with all relevant personal information (name, contact information, university affiliation).

For more information, click here.