October 5, 2011
Women's studies professor presents at Caribbean Philosophical Association
Submitted by Shireen Roshanravan
Shireen Roshanravan, assistant professor of women's studies, presented her research on the methodological relationship between de-colonization and feminism at the eighth annual Caribbean Philosophical Association Conference hosted by Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., Sept. 29-Oct. 1. The conference featured philosophers internationally renowned for their work on grassroots democratic reform, colonial history of globalization, Africana philosophy and indigenous social movements.
Roshanravan's paper, "Feminism and De-colonization: A Plurilogue with Mohanty, Alexander and Lugones," argues that the tendency to erase the different contributions of feminist of color scholars silences necessary tools for mobilizing cross-cultural community work for social change. Instead of collapsing the work of noted Third World feminist scholars, Chandra Mohanty, M. Jacqui Alexander and Maria Lugones, Roshanravan explores their differences not in order to rank them, but rather to consider how their frameworks for social change offer different strategies for motivating and sustaining grassroots coalitional work in communities with colonized histories.