Julie E. Maybee

Contrary to the popular belief that feminism has gained a foothold in the many disciplines of the academy, the essays collected in Theorizing Backlash argue that feminism is still actively resisted in mainstream academia. Contributors to this volume consider the professional, philosophical, and personal backlashes against feminist thought, and reflect upon their ramifications. The conclusion is that the disdain and irrational resentment of feminism, even in higher education, amounts to a backlash against progress.

Biogeochemistry has traditionally been grounded in a substance-based ontology, modeling ecosystem dynamics through discrete nutrient pools and linear fluxes. While such frameworks have advanced our understanding of carbon, methane, and phosphorus cycling, they often obscure the dynamic, relational, and emergent character of biogeochemical processes. This paper introduces a process-ontological framework for biogeochemistry that reconceptualizes elemental transformations not as state transitions between static compartments but as evolving networks of interdependent processes. Drawing on process philosophy, complexity theory, and resilience science, we articulate four foundational principles (relationality, scale dependence, temporal continuity, and emergence) that underpin a processual understanding of biogeochemical systems. Through empirical cases focused on methane and phosphorus cycling, we demonstrate how process ontology informs both modeling strategies and governance practices, including the detection of early warning signals, policy design, and cross-scale management of tipping points. Rather than replacing substance-based approaches, this framework complements them, revealing their underlying metaphysical assumptions and situating them within a broader ontology of dynamic interdependence. It also emphasizes the epistemic–ontological reciprocity of scientific practice, in which conceptual frameworks and empirical observation iteratively refine one another. By embedding ontological reflection within empirical and governance contexts, this work contributes to a broader rethinking of how scientific models mediate between conceptual frameworks and ecological realities, supporting adaptive, transformative and process-aware strategies for environmental management.

In "Rethinking Rationality" I argue that a certain family of accounts of rationality that have historical roots in the history of philosophy and that have been recommended as ways of life, if actually adopted by people as ways of life, will make them psychologically unhealthy. I compare the sort of psychological illness they will have to the sort of illness experienced by alcoholic and other addictive persons. In effect, I suggest, the family of accounts of rationality I have in mind recommends that people become addicted to rationality. ;The sort of picture of rationality that I have in mind is what I call an "external" account of rationality. An external account of rationality is an account that asks someone to adopt another's point of view in deciding what to do. In the history of philosophy most of the relevant external accounts have asked agents to adopt a completely impersonal perspective. Moreover, these pictures ask people who adopt them as ideal ways of life to ensure that each decision they make correspond to and be approved of by the rational picture. I argue that people who thus live their lives will become unhealthy by losing contact with their personal inner lives and identities, and thus with an important part of their humanness. ;Historical representatives of the family of accounts I criticize include Socrates, Kant, and Hegel, under particular interpretations. I also criticize Nicholas Rescher as a modern representative of that same historical tradition. ;The argument for this view, after an initial introductory chapter, is presented through close examinations of Genevieve Lloyd's The Man of Reason, pop-psychologist John Bradshaw's Bradshaw On: The Family, Soren Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments and Friedrich Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols.

Some of the literature about teaching issues of race and racism in classrooms has addressed matters of audience. Zeus Leonardo, for example, has argued that teachers should use the language of white domination, rather than white privilege, when teaching about race and racism because the former language presupposes a minority audience, while the latter addresses an imaginary or presupposed white one. However, there seems to be little discussion in the literature about teaching these issues to an audience that is in fact predominantly minority. Leonardo assumes that minority students need little convincing about the reality of white domination, but students of color are not a monolithic group. The paper addresses some specific challenges the author has faced teaching theories of white domination to a predominantly minority student audience in New York City. Leonardo is right that audience matters, but audience turns out to matter in ways that defy common assumptions

Introduction -- Entering the gallery : Hegel's overall project and the project of the logic -- The skepticism of Hume and Kant -- Reason overgrasps reality -- Essential, necessary universals -- Reason drives itself : semantics and syntax -- Hegel's argument -- Hegel's overall project -- The conceptual and semantic project of the logic -- The syntactic project of the logic -- Introduction -- The doctrine of quality -- The doctrine of quantity -- The doctrine of measure -- Wrap up being : comments on syntax -- Introduction -- Essence as the ground of existence -- The doctrine of appearance -- The doctrine of actuality -- Wrap up essence : comments on syntax -- Introduction -- The doctrine of the object -- The doctrine of the idea -- Wrap up concept : comments on syntax -- Epilogue: Hegel's materialism, optimism, and faith.