Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Minorities and Philosophy (MAP)

MAP at Penn

MAP (Minorities and Philosophy) is a collection of graduate students in philosophy departments that aims to address issues of minority participation in academic philosophy. MAP focuses on (a) minority issues in the profession, (b) theoretical issues regarding philosophy of gender, race, sexual orientation, class, disability, native language, etc. and (c) philosophy done from minority perspectives.

MAP-Penn has contributed to these aims by organizing conferences where philosophers who are leaders in these subfields come together to share their expertise and teach us to incorporate their knowledge in our own work. In addition to conferences, MAP-Penn has organized reading groups, undergraduate information sessions, and other events to help members of Penn's philosophy department connect with others as professionals and community members.

Contact

If you have any questions regarding events run by MAP-Penn, or if you would like to learn more about MAP-Penn in general, feel free to get in touch with any of our members:

Faculty advisor:  Karen Detlefsen

 

Upcoming Events

MAP-Penn - Conference on Racial Justice (google.com) (Register here!)

- Jacoby Carter (Keynote)

- Laura Valentini (Keynote)

- Shalom Chalson and Jiwon Kim - "Understanding the Politics of Colour"

- Alexander Pho - "The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans as a Basis for Afro-Asian Solidarity: A Civic Republican Defense"

- Josué Piñeiro - "Testimonial Spaces and Epistemic Reparations"

- Jennifer Page - "Reparations and the Structural Challenge"

- Andrea Cuniolo - "The Benefits of Lordean Rage for Democracy"

 

Past Events

2022-2023 Academic Year

·      MAP-Penn Conference: Climate Justice (March 31 - April 1st, 2023)

- Krushil Watene: "Indigenous Philosophies and Intergenerational Justice"

​- Clémence Démurger: "Facing the ethical challenge of climate migration through Levinas: Understanding Earth as a home and sharing its hospitality”

​- Daniele Fulvi: "A Consequentialist Approach to Climate Justice and Negative Emission Technologies"

​- Diana Piroli: "Recognition Climate Justice and the Challenge of Pluralism"

​- Kian Mintz-Woo: "Historical Responsibility for Climate Loss and Damage"

​- Erica Onnis:  "Think outside the bun. Freedom narratives about food and the need for global dietary changes”

​- Shruti Pandey: "Rearticulating Responsibility in Globalized Age: A Case of Climate Change"

​- Gaspard Lemaire:  "Hermeneutics of Climate Inaction: The Concept of Anthropocide"

2021-2022 Academic Year

MAP-Penn Conference: Philosophy of Disability and Illness (Apr 8-10)

​- Havi Carel: "Institutional Opacity, Epistemic Vulnerability, and Institutional Testimonial Justice"

​- Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco: “Narrative Identity, Authenticity, and Psychopathology”

​- Ernesto V. Garcia: "Acquired Disability as a Transformative Experience”

​- Desiree Valentine: “Racialized Disablement and the ‘Disability-Disablement Dialectic’"

​- C Dalrymple-Fraser: “Disabling suicides and COVID-19”

​- Joseph Stramondo: "The Ethics of Passing and Disability Disclosure in Professional Philosophy"

​- Adi Goldiner: “Moral Accommodations: Tolerating impairment-related misconduct“

​- Ally Peabody Smith: “Philosophy’s exclusions: Profound intellectual disability and basic equality of human moral standing”

​- Jasmine E. Harris: "The Aesthetics of Disability and Law"

2020-2021 Academic Year

MAP-Penn Conference: Philosophy of Race (Nov 6-8)

- “Resisting Pessimism Traps” with Jennifer M. Morton (UNC-Chapel Hill)
- “On Material Security” with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (Georgetown)
- “Political Violence, Resistance and Relationality” with Mickaella L. Perina (UMass-Boston)
- “Does White Supremacy Explain Anything?” with Patrick O'Donnell (Oakton Community College)
- “Reorienting Africana Philosophical Inquiry” with Miron Clay-Gilmore (Edinburgh)
- “Structural Racism: The Racial Oppression Account” with César Cabezas (Temple)
- “What Use is “Race” in Medicine? A Critical Analysis of Quayshawn Spencer’s Genuine Kind Realism” with Sarah Clairmont (McGill)
- “Back to the Past: Temporal Erasure, Antinative Racism, and Native Racial Formation” with Alex R. Steers-McCrum (CUNY)

2019-2020 Academic Year

·      N/A (Covid-19)

2018-2019 Academic Year

·      Reading Group (weekly) on Indian Philosophy with Deven Patel

·      Workshop on Chinese Philosophy with Bryan Van Norden (Dec 5)

2017-2018 Academic Year

MAP-Penn Conference: Inclusive Methodology and Pedagogy (Apr 6-8)

- “What IS inclusive Methodology and Pedagogy?” with Melissa Jacquart & Steph Wesson (Penn)
- “Philosophy as Conversation” with Daniel Collette (St. Norbert’s College)
- “Teaching Discussion Skills: A Metacognitive Approach” with Ann Cahill (Elon University)
- “De-colonial Pedagogy and the Art of Oral Dialogues” with Ruthanne Crapo (Minnesota Community and Technical College)
- “Alternative Assessment Methods: Perspectives from Instructor and Students” with Melissa Jacquart, Estefania Colon, Caroline Curran, Daniel Egozi, Tanya Jain (Penn)
- “Philosophy for Youths Project at the University of Pennsylvania” with Allauren Forbes & Brian Reese (Penn)

2016-2017 Academic Year

MAP-Penn Conference: Global Feminisms (Mar 24-25)

- “Confucian Political Authority, Social Cohesion, and Dependency Care” with Lisa Rosenlee (Hawai’i – West O’ahu)
- “Sultana’s Dream: Feminist Consciousness through a Bengali Muslim Lens” with Keya Maitra (UNC-Asheville)
- “Agency, Complicity, and the Responsibility to Resist Structural Injustice” with Alison Jaggar (Colorado)
- “Glued to the Image: A Phenomenology of Racialization through Works of Art” with Alia Al-Saji (McGill)
- “Decolonizing Individualisms?” with Serene Khader (Brooklyn)
- “Conceptualizing Transformatory Power” with Nkiru Nzegwu (Binghamton)

·      Reading Group (biweekly) on Classical Arabic Philosophy

·      Workshop on Comparative Philosophy with Dr. Chandana Chakrabarti (Oct 31)

2015-2016 Academic Year

MAP-Penn Conference: Non-Western Philosophy (Feb 26-27)

- “Knots in the Dao” with Jay Garfield (Smith/Yale-NUS/Melbourne)
- “Can Personal/Partial Love Be a Normative Reason?” with Xiaomei Yang (Southern Connecticut State)
- “The Modern Indian Subject: Self and Consciousness in AC Mukerji (1888-1968)” with Nalini Bhushan (Smith)
- “A Matter of Priorities: Avicenna’s Solution to Meno’s Paradox and Its Implications for the Sciences” with Jon McGinnis (Missouri)
- “Why Is There No Quine in Latin American Philosophy?” with Susana Nuccetelli (St. Cloud State)
- “’African Philosophy’: A History of the Expression” with Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia)
- Panel on Teaching Non-Western Philosophy with Aditi Chaturvedi (Penn), James Maffie (Maryland), Kathleen Wright (Haverford), and Alan Fox (Delaware)

·      Reading Group (weekly) on Philosophy of Race (Spring 2016)

·      Reading Group (biweekly) on Classical Chinese Philosophy (Spring 2016, Fall 2015)

·      Seminar: “Eastern and Western Philosophy of Mind” with Kisor Chakrabarti (Oct 22)

2014-2015 Academic Year

  • Reading Group: "Autonomy and Adaptive Preference Formation" with Natalie Stoljar (Jan 29)
  • Reading Group: "Queer/Fear: Disability, Sexuality, and the Other" with Nancy Hirschmann (Feb 26)
  • Reading Group: “Philosophy Unbound: The Idea of Global Philosophy" with Thom Brooks (Mar 26)
  • Workshop: Non-Western Philosophy Traditions (Mar 27)
    - “Aztec Natural Philosophy” with James Maffie (Maryland)
    - “Buddhist Conceptions of Causation” with Ricki Bliss (Lehigh)
    - “Indian Theories of Meaning” with Deven Patel (Penn)
    - “The City of Istanbul as an ‘Epistemic Clearing House’ in the Early Modern Period with Harun Kücük (Penn)
    - “The Use of Thought Experiments in Classical Chinese Ethics” with Bryan van Norden (Vassar)
  • Reading Group: "Disability and Justice" with Christie Hartley (Apr 23)
  • Reading Group: "Racial Cognition and the Ethics of Implicit Bias" with Daniel Kelly and Erica Roedder (Sep 22)
  • Reading Group: "Bare Ontology and Social Death" with Paul Taylor (Oct 20)
  • MAP-Penn Philosophy Undergraduate Tea (Oct 29)
  • Reading Group: "Changing the Ideology and Culture of Philosophy: Not by Reason (alone)" with Sally Haslanger & “Diotima's Ghost: The Uncertain Place of Feminist Philosophy in Professional Philosophy" with Margaret Urban Walker (Nov 17)