Women, Philosophy, and History: A Conference in Celebration of Eileen O’Neill

This two-day conference continues the groundbreaking work of Eileen O’Neill ’75 by examining the standard narrative of the history of philosophy from a feminist perspective. O’Neill’s pioneering scholarship has brought to light the texts and ideas of women in the early modern period, and demonstrated the substantial contributions they made to philosophy. Her work has encouraged the analysis of thinkers as diverse as Marie de Gournay, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anna Maria van Schurman, Mary Astell, Émilie du Châtelet, and Damaris Masham. It has also challenged philosophers to reconsider methodological assumptions that have hidden these women and their works from view. The eminent international scholars gathered for this conference will continue this exploration and discuss the methodological, pedagogical, and philosophical implications of O’Neill’s work. The conference also celebrates the impact of O’Neill’s commitment to women in philosophy more generally.

Participants include Lanier Anderson (Stanford), Martha Bolton (Rutgers), Desmond Clarke (University College Cork), John Conley (Loyola College, Maryland), Marguerite Deslauriers (McGill University), Karen Detlefsen (University of Pennsylvania), Ann Ferguson (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Alan Gabbey (Barnard College), Dan Garber (Princeton University), Don Garrett (New York University), Karen Green (University of Monash, Australia), Gary Hatfield (University of Pennsylvania), Sarah Hutton (Aberystwyth University), Dan Kaufman (University of Colorado), Anne Marie Keyes (Marymount Manhattan College), Marcy Lascano (California State, Long Beach), Ernan McMullin (University of Notre Dame), Stephen Menn (McGill University), Christia Mercer (Columbia University), James Ross (University of Pennsylvania), Marleen Rozemond (University of Toronto), Tad Schmaltz (University of Michigan), Lisa Shapiro (Simon Fraser), Alison Simmons (Harvard University), Robert Sleigh (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Alice Sowaal (San Francisco State University), Connie Titone (Villanova University), Mary Ellen Waithe (Cleveland State University), Sue Weinberg (Hunter College, CUNY), and Eileen O’Neill (University of Massachusetts, Amherst).

Sponsored by: Barnard Center for Research on Women; The Philosophy Departments of Barnard College, Columbia University, Nassau Community College, Princeton University, Queens College (CUNY), Simon Fraser University, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, University of Notre Dame, and University of Pennsylvania; the Provost of Barnard College; the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Columbia University; Office of the Dean of Arts & Humanities, Harvard University; NYU Issues in Modern Philosophy Conference Series, sponsored by the NYU Department of Philosophy and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Dean of Humanities, Department of Philosophy, and Program in Feminist Studies, Stanford University.