Papers by Nancy McHugh
We write from the perspective and insights of people who are currently incarcerated as well as pe... more We write from the perspective and insights of people who are currently incarcerated as well as people who have been in a working relationship with them for the past two years. Many of us began working together in the fall semester of 2014 through an Inside-Out Prison Exchange course and have continued working together through additional coursework and reading groups. 2 The writers in our group who are incarcerated are theorizing from the perspective of people who have served at least five years in prison, with approximately half of us having served more than ten years, and some having served more than twenty years. The vast majority of the incarcerated portion of our group has served time in multiple prisons, as well as prisons of a higher security level than our current level-one and-two prison. Furthermore, we are working from inside of a men's prison. Though our working group includes outside women as well as two outside men, we are primarily writing from the experiences of men who are incarcerated. We believe that many of our philoSOPHIA_6.1_02.indd 9 29/04/16 2:39 AM
Journal of Value Inquiry, 1999
… Reflections on the Work of June Jordan. Lanham, MD: …, 2004
In this paper I use the experiences and activism of the women of Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP), fo... more In this paper I use the experiences and activism of the women of Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP), focusing specifically on a community citizens-science group called the Mothers Committee, to develop arguments for situated knowledge and to point to the trajectory that I see these arguments taking—that of “increasingly concrete engagements.” I argue that situation is a vital epistemic location that is salient to its members, it is a place to know, and it is a place from which to initiate transformative practices, as well as a place that is transformed. Situation has the potential to generate different possibilities for community knowledge and thus for creating change.
In addition to the Bayview Hunters Point and the Mothers Committee being apt examples of situated knowledge, they also provide a critical example of environmental, health, and racial injustice and a powerful example of how communities resist injustice. Thus, the equally important goal of this chapter is to highlight just how this community is subjected to, experiences, and resists injustice. Finally, my goal in this paper is not to critically assess the merits of arguments for situated knowledge. Instead it is to employ them in order to understand their potential to help us to “rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it little or large, the world in which we live.” My goal is thus a pragmatic one. It is, in a sense, an employed response to the question that Janet Kournay raises in “The Place of Standpoint Theory in Feminist Science Studies” (2009) “is standpoint theory [and other situated approaches] a resource” for feminist science studies, and I would add, for social change?
“And yet, being a problem is a strange experience.”
Early in The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. D... more “And yet, being a problem is a strange experience.”
Early in The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois articulates this epistemically embodied experience of what it is like to be a “problem.” For Du Bois, there is a bit of irony, because, as he points out, except as an infant and when in Europe, he has had few moments in which he has “never been anything else” but a problem. Even though this experience is the norm for Du Bois and other African Americans, it is still a norm that never becomes comfortable. There is always an epistemic and embodied disjunct between what Du Bois knows his self to be and how Whites see him. The irony goes even deeper because even with a cursory reading of these first few pages of Souls it becomes obvious that Du Bois is not really the “problem”; his White questioner is. Yet the White questioner never experiences the cognitive and visceral dissociation of being a problem. His questioner’s entrenched privilege and ability to remain ignorant when he thinks he is acting “compassionately” or “curiously” precludes him from having the “strange experience” of being a problem.
Though Du Bois’s supposedly sympathetic White questioner never experiences himself as a problem, some Whites do have this strange experience of what it is like to be a problem. For many of us it comes along with a developing awareness of ourselves as raced and of ourselves as having privilege in virtue of being White. It also comes through with the awareness that (like Du Bois’s questioner) even though many Whites like to believe that we are not racist, we in fact are. I frame this chapter through three teaching moments, painting a picture of my struggle with working to understand, articulate, and embody what it means to be a problem and the challenges that I have had in having my students join me in this struggle. I hope to articulate that part of the process of coming to terms with one’s White privilege and racism is recognizing that as a White woman in a racist culture that I am always going to be a problem and that being troubled by this, while at the same time working to create change, is a valuable epistemic and practical location.
This presentation is part of the Social Values in Medical Research track. Due to higher than nati... more This presentation is part of the Social Values in Medical Research track. Due to higher than national average breast cancer rates and deaths on Long Island the U.S. Congress in 1993 ordered a study of breast cancer on the island. The Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project (LIBCSP), federally funded under Public Law 103-43, conducted by the National Cancer Institute
I build upon feminist arguments for situated knowledge and pragmatist arguments for experimental ... more I build upon feminist arguments for situated knowledge and pragmatist arguments for experimental inquiry to articulate and argue for an approach that I refer to as situated communities. This approach seeks to generate effective and ethical scientific research practices by asking that researchers focus on communities in their complex environment as subjects of study instead of relying primarily on clinical trials and laboratory research. Communities should be recognized as situated epistemic agents and as changing, evolving centers of life. Doing so requires that these communities are understood in their materiality through bodies that are aged, gendered, abled/disabled, raced, classed, colonized, bordered, materially advantaged and disadvantaged, engaged in particular daily practices within a complex environment. To illustrate my argument I analyze the effects of Agent Orange on communities in the Aluoi Valley, Vietnam and the accompanying research on Agent Orange. I argue that when...
Feminized steer, mutated bodies, man-made food, rampant cancer, nose-diving fertility rates, envi... more Feminized steer, mutated bodies, man-made food, rampant cancer, nose-diving fertility rates, environmental destruction, political conspiracies, the denial of knowledge are all common themes in science fiction. Unfortunately, they are also are part of our collective “non-fiction,” or social reality. In this article I focus on Japanese-American novelist Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats to consider how fiction about science serves to de-fictionalize science while at the same time it serves as science fiction. Ozeki engages in what has come to be called an epistemology of ignorance project. Her novels serve to create knowledge where knowledge has been actively lost, obscured, or ignored and is engaging in a new type of science fiction by using the novel as a medium to generate knowledge about contemporary science, revealing that the overlooked present is worse than the feared fictional future. We don’t have to look beyond the now to be terrorized or realize that our bodies, our food, our planet are already mutant/mutated. Ozeki shows that the standard trope of science fiction novels is in fact true: an unsuspecting public is participating in and funding its own destruction while an “evil” government, over-zealous scientists and greedy corporations watch on, benefit, and are amused by our ignorance.
I begin this article by first providing a sketch of My Year of Meats. I next review foundational texts in the epistemology of ignorance. I then argue that science fiction itself can be a type of epistemology of ignorance project and that Ruth Ozeki’s fictionalizing of science is a prime example of this. I do this in two ways. First I look at what Ozeki has to say about truth, knowledge and ignorance. I then look to see what knowledge she reveals to us through her fiction.
Books by Nancy McHugh
In progress, Making the Case: Feminist and Critical Race Theorists Investigate Case Studies
Edito... more In progress, Making the Case: Feminist and Critical Race Theorists Investigate Case Studies
Editors: Heidi Grasswick and Nancy McHugh
Volume to be published with SUNY Press
Over the past twenty-five years feminist and critical race theorists working in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine have often employed case studies and extended case examples to make arguments about the efficacy of particular epistemic approaches, to illustrate such epistemic phenomena as the construction of ignorance and the gendered and racialized structure of the sciences and medicine, and to take up issues of epistemic justice and epistemic democracy. Yet in spite of the growing body of literature in this area, there has not yet been a volume that 1) provides critical assessments of the effectiveness of case-study approaches for feminist and critical race theorists or 2) provides examples of the pluralism of the approaches in this area. This volume seeks to offer a collection of new work in case study analysis informed by philosophers working in feminist and critical race theory.
We invite initial abstract submissions of 500-750 words that address the use of case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, particularly as their use pertains to the goals of feminist and critical race theorists. Submissions may focus on theoretical and methodological issues concerning case studies and/or engage particular case studies directly, focusing on the development of new and significant case studies that further understandings of social justice issues that are of interest to feminists and critical race theorists. Among the questions that could be considered are: What kind of conclusions can adequately be drawn from case studies? Are there epistemic dangers of working with case studies? Is case-study analysis especially useful for illustrating the dynamics of social injustice and if so, why? What pressing social justice issues might be most adequately addressed through particular case-study analyses? How has the historical use of case studies developed feminist and critical race theorists’ understanding of knowledge production? What are some of the different ways in which case-study analysis has been developed and can be developed by feminist and critical race theorists? How do case-study approaches help to recognize the epistemic resources are generated by marginalized communities? Can new case-study analyses demonstrate an even broader array of epistemic benefits of case-engaged methodology than what has been illustrated thus far? We welcome work from feminist and critical race theorists that develops new case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, as well as more theoretical approaches that critically reflect upon the process of using cases.
The Limits of Knowledge provides an understanding of what pragmatist feminist theories look like ... more The Limits of Knowledge provides an understanding of what pragmatist feminist theories look like in practice, combining insights from the work of American pragmatist John Dewey concerning experimental inquiry and transaction with arguments for situated knowledge rooted in contemporary feminism. Using case studies to demonstrate some of the particular ways that dominant scientific and medical practices fail to meet the health needs of marginalized groups and communities, Nancy Arden McHugh shows how transactionally situated approaches are better able to meet the needs of these communities. Examples include a community action group fighting environmental injustice in Bayview Hunters Point, California, one of the most toxic communities in the US; gender, race, age, and class biases in the study and diagnosis of endometriosis; a critique of Evidence-Based Medicine; the current effects of Agent Orange on Vietnamese women and children; and pediatric treatment of Amish and Mennonite children.
A concise alphabetical guide to the key terms, issues, theoretical approaches, projects and think... more A concise alphabetical guide to the key terms, issues, theoretical approaches, projects and thinkers in feminist philosophy. Feminist Philosophies A-Z covers contemporary material in a number of feminist approaches. It illustrates the complexity, range and interconnectedness of issues in feminist philosophy while making clear the relationship of feminist philosophy to the rest of philosophy as a discipline (epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, social philosophy and metaphysics). Entries are pithy, detailed, informative and are cross-referenced to guide the reader through the lively debates in feminism. This volume is an indispensable resource for philosophers, students, and Women's Studies faculties as well as anyone with an interest in feminist philosophy."
Special Issues by Nancy McHugh
philoSOPHIA: a journal of continental feminism, 2016
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Papers by Nancy McHugh
In addition to the Bayview Hunters Point and the Mothers Committee being apt examples of situated knowledge, they also provide a critical example of environmental, health, and racial injustice and a powerful example of how communities resist injustice. Thus, the equally important goal of this chapter is to highlight just how this community is subjected to, experiences, and resists injustice. Finally, my goal in this paper is not to critically assess the merits of arguments for situated knowledge. Instead it is to employ them in order to understand their potential to help us to “rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it little or large, the world in which we live.” My goal is thus a pragmatic one. It is, in a sense, an employed response to the question that Janet Kournay raises in “The Place of Standpoint Theory in Feminist Science Studies” (2009) “is standpoint theory [and other situated approaches] a resource” for feminist science studies, and I would add, for social change?
Early in The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois articulates this epistemically embodied experience of what it is like to be a “problem.” For Du Bois, there is a bit of irony, because, as he points out, except as an infant and when in Europe, he has had few moments in which he has “never been anything else” but a problem. Even though this experience is the norm for Du Bois and other African Americans, it is still a norm that never becomes comfortable. There is always an epistemic and embodied disjunct between what Du Bois knows his self to be and how Whites see him. The irony goes even deeper because even with a cursory reading of these first few pages of Souls it becomes obvious that Du Bois is not really the “problem”; his White questioner is. Yet the White questioner never experiences the cognitive and visceral dissociation of being a problem. His questioner’s entrenched privilege and ability to remain ignorant when he thinks he is acting “compassionately” or “curiously” precludes him from having the “strange experience” of being a problem.
Though Du Bois’s supposedly sympathetic White questioner never experiences himself as a problem, some Whites do have this strange experience of what it is like to be a problem. For many of us it comes along with a developing awareness of ourselves as raced and of ourselves as having privilege in virtue of being White. It also comes through with the awareness that (like Du Bois’s questioner) even though many Whites like to believe that we are not racist, we in fact are. I frame this chapter through three teaching moments, painting a picture of my struggle with working to understand, articulate, and embody what it means to be a problem and the challenges that I have had in having my students join me in this struggle. I hope to articulate that part of the process of coming to terms with one’s White privilege and racism is recognizing that as a White woman in a racist culture that I am always going to be a problem and that being troubled by this, while at the same time working to create change, is a valuable epistemic and practical location.
I begin this article by first providing a sketch of My Year of Meats. I next review foundational texts in the epistemology of ignorance. I then argue that science fiction itself can be a type of epistemology of ignorance project and that Ruth Ozeki’s fictionalizing of science is a prime example of this. I do this in two ways. First I look at what Ozeki has to say about truth, knowledge and ignorance. I then look to see what knowledge she reveals to us through her fiction.
Books by Nancy McHugh
Editors: Heidi Grasswick and Nancy McHugh
Volume to be published with SUNY Press
Over the past twenty-five years feminist and critical race theorists working in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine have often employed case studies and extended case examples to make arguments about the efficacy of particular epistemic approaches, to illustrate such epistemic phenomena as the construction of ignorance and the gendered and racialized structure of the sciences and medicine, and to take up issues of epistemic justice and epistemic democracy. Yet in spite of the growing body of literature in this area, there has not yet been a volume that 1) provides critical assessments of the effectiveness of case-study approaches for feminist and critical race theorists or 2) provides examples of the pluralism of the approaches in this area. This volume seeks to offer a collection of new work in case study analysis informed by philosophers working in feminist and critical race theory.
We invite initial abstract submissions of 500-750 words that address the use of case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, particularly as their use pertains to the goals of feminist and critical race theorists. Submissions may focus on theoretical and methodological issues concerning case studies and/or engage particular case studies directly, focusing on the development of new and significant case studies that further understandings of social justice issues that are of interest to feminists and critical race theorists. Among the questions that could be considered are: What kind of conclusions can adequately be drawn from case studies? Are there epistemic dangers of working with case studies? Is case-study analysis especially useful for illustrating the dynamics of social injustice and if so, why? What pressing social justice issues might be most adequately addressed through particular case-study analyses? How has the historical use of case studies developed feminist and critical race theorists’ understanding of knowledge production? What are some of the different ways in which case-study analysis has been developed and can be developed by feminist and critical race theorists? How do case-study approaches help to recognize the epistemic resources are generated by marginalized communities? Can new case-study analyses demonstrate an even broader array of epistemic benefits of case-engaged methodology than what has been illustrated thus far? We welcome work from feminist and critical race theorists that develops new case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, as well as more theoretical approaches that critically reflect upon the process of using cases.
Special Issues by Nancy McHugh
In addition to the Bayview Hunters Point and the Mothers Committee being apt examples of situated knowledge, they also provide a critical example of environmental, health, and racial injustice and a powerful example of how communities resist injustice. Thus, the equally important goal of this chapter is to highlight just how this community is subjected to, experiences, and resists injustice. Finally, my goal in this paper is not to critically assess the merits of arguments for situated knowledge. Instead it is to employ them in order to understand their potential to help us to “rearrange and reconstruct in some way, be it little or large, the world in which we live.” My goal is thus a pragmatic one. It is, in a sense, an employed response to the question that Janet Kournay raises in “The Place of Standpoint Theory in Feminist Science Studies” (2009) “is standpoint theory [and other situated approaches] a resource” for feminist science studies, and I would add, for social change?
Early in The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois articulates this epistemically embodied experience of what it is like to be a “problem.” For Du Bois, there is a bit of irony, because, as he points out, except as an infant and when in Europe, he has had few moments in which he has “never been anything else” but a problem. Even though this experience is the norm for Du Bois and other African Americans, it is still a norm that never becomes comfortable. There is always an epistemic and embodied disjunct between what Du Bois knows his self to be and how Whites see him. The irony goes even deeper because even with a cursory reading of these first few pages of Souls it becomes obvious that Du Bois is not really the “problem”; his White questioner is. Yet the White questioner never experiences the cognitive and visceral dissociation of being a problem. His questioner’s entrenched privilege and ability to remain ignorant when he thinks he is acting “compassionately” or “curiously” precludes him from having the “strange experience” of being a problem.
Though Du Bois’s supposedly sympathetic White questioner never experiences himself as a problem, some Whites do have this strange experience of what it is like to be a problem. For many of us it comes along with a developing awareness of ourselves as raced and of ourselves as having privilege in virtue of being White. It also comes through with the awareness that (like Du Bois’s questioner) even though many Whites like to believe that we are not racist, we in fact are. I frame this chapter through three teaching moments, painting a picture of my struggle with working to understand, articulate, and embody what it means to be a problem and the challenges that I have had in having my students join me in this struggle. I hope to articulate that part of the process of coming to terms with one’s White privilege and racism is recognizing that as a White woman in a racist culture that I am always going to be a problem and that being troubled by this, while at the same time working to create change, is a valuable epistemic and practical location.
I begin this article by first providing a sketch of My Year of Meats. I next review foundational texts in the epistemology of ignorance. I then argue that science fiction itself can be a type of epistemology of ignorance project and that Ruth Ozeki’s fictionalizing of science is a prime example of this. I do this in two ways. First I look at what Ozeki has to say about truth, knowledge and ignorance. I then look to see what knowledge she reveals to us through her fiction.
Editors: Heidi Grasswick and Nancy McHugh
Volume to be published with SUNY Press
Over the past twenty-five years feminist and critical race theorists working in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine have often employed case studies and extended case examples to make arguments about the efficacy of particular epistemic approaches, to illustrate such epistemic phenomena as the construction of ignorance and the gendered and racialized structure of the sciences and medicine, and to take up issues of epistemic justice and epistemic democracy. Yet in spite of the growing body of literature in this area, there has not yet been a volume that 1) provides critical assessments of the effectiveness of case-study approaches for feminist and critical race theorists or 2) provides examples of the pluralism of the approaches in this area. This volume seeks to offer a collection of new work in case study analysis informed by philosophers working in feminist and critical race theory.
We invite initial abstract submissions of 500-750 words that address the use of case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, particularly as their use pertains to the goals of feminist and critical race theorists. Submissions may focus on theoretical and methodological issues concerning case studies and/or engage particular case studies directly, focusing on the development of new and significant case studies that further understandings of social justice issues that are of interest to feminists and critical race theorists. Among the questions that could be considered are: What kind of conclusions can adequately be drawn from case studies? Are there epistemic dangers of working with case studies? Is case-study analysis especially useful for illustrating the dynamics of social injustice and if so, why? What pressing social justice issues might be most adequately addressed through particular case-study analyses? How has the historical use of case studies developed feminist and critical race theorists’ understanding of knowledge production? What are some of the different ways in which case-study analysis has been developed and can be developed by feminist and critical race theorists? How do case-study approaches help to recognize the epistemic resources are generated by marginalized communities? Can new case-study analyses demonstrate an even broader array of epistemic benefits of case-engaged methodology than what has been illustrated thus far? We welcome work from feminist and critical race theorists that develops new case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, as well as more theoretical approaches that critically reflect upon the process of using cases.