-
36Book review: Joan Williams. Unbending gender: Why family and work conflict and what to do about it. oxford: Oxford university press, 2000 (review)Hypatia 19 (3): 228-231. 2004.
-
721Going to Bed White and Waking Up Arab: On Xenophobia, Affect Theories of Laughter, and the Social Contagion of the Comic StageCritical Philosophy of Race 2 (1): 84-105. 2014.Like lynching and other mass hysterias, xenophobia exemplifies a contagious, collective wave of energy and hedonic quality that can point toward a troubling unpredictability at the core of political and social systems. While earlier studies of mass hysteria and popular discourse assume that cooler heads (aka rational individuals with their logic) could and should regain control over those emotions that are deemed irrational, and that boundaries are assumed healthy only when intact, affect studie…Read more
-
438Affect Attunement in the Caregiver-Infant Relationship and Across Species: Expanding the Ethical Scope of ErosphiloSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism 2 (2): 111-130. 2012.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Affect Attunement in the Caregiver-Infant Relationship and Across SpeciesExpanding the Ethical Scope of ErosCynthia WillettCompelling glimpses into the ethical capacities of our animal kin reveal new possibilities for ethical relationships encompassing humans with other animal species. Consider the remarkable report of a female bonobo in a British zoo who assists a bird found in her cage by retrieving the fallen bird, and spreading i…Read more
-
376Water and Wing Give Wonder: Cross-Species CosmopolitanismPhaenEx 8 (2): 185-208. 2013.Any interspecies ethics could do well to flip the claim of human exceptionalism several times on its head. Before entertaining a claim to re-naturalize human beings (with the risk of a reductive model of biology), the remarkable communicative, cultural, and cognitive skills of other creatures deserve more investigation. The usual line-up of metaphysical suspects for shoring up human superiority—impartial reason, moral or spiritual freedom, and self-awareness—have been used to gravely overstate o…Read more
-
226The pyramid that the slaves built: A response to John LachsJournal of Speculative Philosophy 15 (3): 184-189. 2001.
-
28Maternal Ethics and Other Slave MoralitiesRoutledge. 1995.In ____Maternal Ethics and Other Slave Moralities__ which includes the first extended philosophical discussion of the works of Frederick Douglass, Cynthia Willett puts forward a novel theory of ethical subjectivity that is aimed to counter prevailing pathologies of sexist, racist Eurocentric culture. Weaving together accounts of the self drawn from African-American and European philosophies, psychoanalysis, slave narratives and sociology, Willett interrogates what Hegel locates as the core of th…Read more
-
73False consciousness and moral objectivity in kansasJournal of Speculative Philosophy 22 (4). 2008.
-
Between the Psyche and the Social: Psychoanalytic Social Theory (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2001.Between the Psyche and the Social is the first collection that specifically features the field of psychoanalytic social theory emerging in and between psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial studies, and queer theory, and across the disciplines of philosophy, literary, film, and cultural studies. This collection of essays takes the psychoanalytic study of social oppression in some new directions by engaging—indeed, stirring up—unconscious fantasies and ethical tensions at the heart of social subj…Read more
-
712Ground zero for a post-moral ethics in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Julia Kristeva’s melancholicContinental Philosophy Review 45 (1): 1-22. 2011.Perhaps no other novel has received as much attention from moral philosophers as South African writer J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace . The novel is ethically compelling and yet no moral theory explains its force. Despite clear Kantian moments, neither rationalism nor self-respect can account for the strange ethical task that the protagonist sets for himself. Calling himself the dog man, like the ancient Cynics, this shamelessly cynical protagonist takes his cues for ethics not from humans but from ani…Read more
-
24Subjugation and Bondage: Critical Essays on Slavery and Social Philosophy (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1998.This volume addresses a wide variety of moral concerns regarding slavery as an institutionalized social practice. By considering the slave's critical appropriation of the natural rights doctrine, the ambiguous implications of various notions of consent and liberty are examined. The authors assume that, although slavery is undoubtedly an evil social practice, its moral assessment stands in need of a more nuanced treatment. They address the question of what is wrong with slavery by critically exam…Read more
-
633The Seriously erotic Politics of feminist laughterSocial Research: An International Quarterly 79 (1): 217-246. 2012.
-
37Overcoming habits of whiteliness: Reading Shannon Sullivan's revealing whitenessJournal of Speculative Philosophy 21 (3). 2007.
-
27Interspecies EthicsColumbia University Press. 2014.Interspecies Ethics explores animals' vast capacity for agency, justice, solidarity, humor, and communication across species. The social bonds diverse animals form provide a remarkable model for communitarian justice and cosmopolitan peace, challenging the human exceptionalism that drives modern moral theory. Situating biosocial ethics firmly within coevolutionary processes, this volume has profound implications for work in social and political thought, contemporary pragmatism, Africana thought,…Read more
Druid Hills, Georgia, United States of America