•  20
    Philosophical Curiosity: What and Who Is It For?
    American Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy. forthcoming.
    In this essay, I sketch a preliminary account of philosophical curiosity. Drawing on philosophy of curiosity, philosophy of education, and philosophical pedagogy, I argue first that philosophical curiosity is a set of investigative practices and affects that engage philosophical content and philosophical skills. Turning to critical pedagogy and meta-philosophy, especially via Paulo Freire and Kristie Dotson, I then supplement the preliminary account by arguing that philosophical curiosity is als…Read more
  •  7
    Abolition and the Prophetic Imagination
    Foucault Studies 1 (3): 100-104. 2021.
    There is something prophetic about abolition; some element of the elsewhere that marks its practice, and its discourse. In the work of undoing, there is a crack. In the refusal, a moment of imagination. Abolition is driven by definitive demands as much as by what is yet to come and what is still unfinished.
  • Wonder and écriture : descartes and Irigaray, writing at intervals
    In Mary C. Rawlinson (ed.), Engaging the World: Thinking after Irigaray, State University of New York Press. 2016.
  •  6
    Intolerable: A book symposium
    Foucault Studies 31. 2021.
  •  1
    Expanding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to Disability: Opportunities for Biological Psychiatry
    Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging 7 (12): 1280-1288. 2022.
    Given its subject matter, biological psychiatry is uniquely poised to lead STEM DEI initiatives related to disability. Drawing on literatures in science, philosophy, psychiatry, and disability studies, we outline how that leadership might be undertaken. We first review existing opportunities for the advancement of DEI in biological psychiatry around axes of gender and race. We then explore the expansion of biological psychiatry’s DEI efforts to disability, especially along the lines of represent…Read more
  •  6
    It is hardly difficult to imagine writing about critical phenomenology and walking. One might pause over the method of critical phenomenology as a meta-odos, a thinking of the path. Or consider the steps critical phenomenology takes and the unique pitch of its gait as it traverses the borderlands between phenomenology and critical theory. One might query how these two have the capacity to walk so well side by side, so much so that they can become as one, barely distinguishable against an open sk…Read more
  •  5
    This interview with Hélène Cixous took place in her apartment in Paris on March 14, 2019. The interview was conducted in English and subsequently revised for publication. The discussion focuses on Cixous' involvement in the Prisons Information Group in the early 1970's, but it extends to her writing life and activism both before and since.
  •  67
    Trans Philosophy: The Early Years
    APA Newsletter on LGBTQ Issues in Philosophy 1 (20): 1-11. 2020.
    Trans philosophy—like everything else—has a history. The 1990s was a pivotal decade for the academic development of trans philosophy in the United States and Canada. During this period, the broader interdisciplinary field of transgender studies was beginning to emerge, and professional philosophy’s own contributions to transgender studies were starting to take shape as well. In what follows, we hear from Talia Mae Bettcher, Loren Cannon, Miqqi Alicia Gilbert, and Jacob Hale, four trans philosoph…Read more
  •  7
    Bathroom
    In Keywords in Gender and Sexuality Studies, New York University Press. pp. 23-. 2021.
    There is no denying that the bathroom is a political space. But that is what makes it a space of possibility. As a social-material fixture we use every day, the bathroom has the potential to illuminate, and ultimately to challenge, some of our deepest values and deepest needs. Appreciating the weave of experiences and institutions that have, across time, made the modern bathroom what it is opens up important questions about what it might be. Leaning into the legacy of refusal, we can demand a ra…Read more
  •  21
    Critical Phenomenology of Walking: Footpaths and Flight Ways
    PUNCTA: Journal of Critical Phenomenology 1 (4): 1-18. 2021.
    In this essay, I sketch the contours of a critical phenomenology of walking. I begin by briefly characterizing the critical phenomenological project and marking some of its invitations to think method and movement alongside one another. Then, I explore two modes of doing a critical phenomenology of walking: attending to how one walks and when and where one walks. I revisit and reread, in particular, the stories of Charlie Howard and Latisha King, whose walks not only signaled a unique comportmen…Read more
  •  3
    Trans Philosophy: Meaning and Mattering (edited book)
    with Talia Bettcher, Andrea Pitts, and P. J. DiPietro
    University of Minnesota Press. forthcoming.
    Trans Philosophy: Meaning and Mattering will be the first authoritative collection to establish trans philosophy as a unique field of inquiry. It defines trans philosophy as philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of transgender experiences, histories, cultural production, and politics. The book will showcase work from a range of fresh and established voices in this nascent field. It will address a variety of topics (e.g. embodiment, identity, language, law, politics, transpho…Read more
  •  37
    Throughout history, many scholars have offered up definitions of curiosity. These definitions range far and wide. Some attempt to amass all the elements of curiosity, systematize them, and propose a unified theory. Some characterize curiosity as a conceptual unit with two primary dimensions (e.g. epistemic and perceptual), as two distinct kinds of things (e.g. bona et mala curiositas), or as one side of a binary (e.g. curiosity vs. care). What is curiosity? Which characterization is most apt to …Read more
  •  31
    Social Death
    In Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy & Gayle Salamon (eds.), Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, Nothwestern University Press. pp. 309-314. 2019.
    There is a kind of living that feels like dying. There is a kind of life marked—relentlessly—by death. The term social death refers to this experience, this rhythm, this walled passage. By definition, social death may belong to whoever—or indeed whatever—lives and dies in a network of relation. Even when conceived of only anthropocentrically, then, the term must apply beyond that, because the human being lives and dies in nonhuman relation. Moreover, social death always occurs out of sync with p…Read more
  •  9
    Curiosity and Political Resistance
    In Perry Zurn & Arjun Shankar (eds.), Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge. pp. 227-245. 2020.
    In this essay, the resistant potential of curiosity will be first framed by theories of political curiosity writ large (drawn from Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida) and then explicated through three case studies: the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, prison resistance networks in the 1970’s, and a more recent initiative for accessible restrooms. From these archives, an anatomy of politically resistant curiosity will be drawn.
  •  17
    On Teaching Curiosity
    with Arjun Shankar
    In Perry Zurn & Arjun Shankar (eds.), Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge. pp. 269-290. 2020.
    In this essay, we offer a preliminary account of why and how to consciously cultivate curiosity in contemporary learning environments. First, we begin by discussing some of the educational theory upon which curiosity-centric classrooms might be built: experiential learning pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, critical pedagogy, and abolitionist pedagogy. Second, recognizing that our social, cultural, political, and economic processes all shape who can be curious, about what, and when, we then formulate …Read more
  •  28
    What is Curiosity Studies?
    with Arjun Shankar
    In Perry Zurn & Arjun Shankar (eds.), Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge. 2020.
    In what follows, we intervene in the long history of the study of curiosity to propose curiosity studies proper. Such a field, we argue, traverses the many disciplinary and experiential contexts in which curiosity appears, in order to generate theories, analytics, and practices of curiosity that are as complex and ubiquitous as the phenomenon of curiosity itself. Assuming an ecology of knowledge framework, which expressly resists academic silos and intellectual monocultures, we envision curiosit…Read more
  •  22
    Prisons
    In Ásta Sveinsdóttir & Kim Q. Hall (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy. pp. 440-450. 2021.
    Prisons are a feminist issue. This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist philosophical work on prisons, examples of important contributions, and future directions for feminist work in the field. It does so, however, in a way that consciously deploys a feminist methodology that resists the replication of hierarchical norms and structural violence in the very doing of theory and history. In this spirit, it emphasizes the record of struggle across the prison’s history, …Read more
  •  19
    Abolition is a Kite-Idea
    In Chloe Taylor & Kelly Struthers Montford (eds.), Building Abolition: Decarceration and Social Justice. 2021.
    What is abolition? What is the logic of its movement, the character of its kinesthetic signature? By exploring abolition’s debts to Foucauldian genealogy, the messianism in Derridean deconstruction, and the affective resistance among queer/trans communities, this essay argues that abolition is a kite-idea. It moves by flying overhead, shimmering in the sun, and tugging at the hand. Abolition is a practice of history, a dream of the future, and an affective struggle lived today. This is its fragi…Read more
  •  6
    In this Introduction, we offer, in the first section, a brief sketch of events before turning to track the profound innovations in militancy and theory that Le Group d'information sur les prisons (The Prisons Information Group, the GIP) and its work represent. In the second section, we explore the GIP’s prisoner-centered and largely prisoner-led structure, predicated on the recognition that prisoners have the political knowledge and political agency most relevant to prison resistance movements. …Read more
  •  21
    Facilitating Curiosity and Mindfulness: A Socio-Political Approach
    Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice 3 (4): 67-90. 2021.
    As an outgrowth of experiential and critical pedagogies, and in response to growing rates of student anxiety and depression, educators in recent years have made increasing efforts to facilitate curiosity and mindfulness in the classroom. In Section I, we describe the rationale and function of these initiatives, focusing on the Right Question Institute and mindfulness curricula. Although we admire much about these programs, here we explore ways to complicate and deepen them through a more sociall…Read more
  •  1
    Curious about something? Google it. Look at it. Ask a question. But is curiosity simply information seeking? According to this exhilarating, genre-bending book, what’s left out of the conventional understanding of curiosity are the wandering tracks, the weaving concepts, the knitting of ideas, and the thatching of knowledge systems—the networks, the relations between ideas and between people. Curiosity, say Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett, is a practice of connection: it connects ideas into networks…Read more
  •  29
    Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge (edited book)
    University of Minnesota Press. 2020.
    From science and technology to business and education, curiosity is often taken for granted as an unquestioned good. And yet, few people can define curiosity. Curiosity Studies marshals scholars from more than a dozen fields not only to define curiosity but also to grapple with its ethics as well as its role in technological advancement and global citizenship. While intriguing research on curiosity has occurred in numerous disciplines for decades, no rigorously cross-disciplinary study has exist…Read more
  •  47
    Feminist curiosity
    Philosophy Compass 16 (9). 2021.
    What is feminist curiosity? Or better yet, how is feminist curiosity practiced, where is it practiced, and with whom is it practiced? In this essay, I develop a philosophical account of feminist curiosity by drawing on direct contributions from the feminist philosophical tradition, but also by interweaving scattered testaments to feminist curiosity from critical race theory, intersex studies, disability studies, and trans studies. What surfaces in this inquiry is an account of feminist curiosity…Read more
  •  22
    A groundbreaking collection of writings by Michel Foucault and the Prisons Information Group documenting their efforts to expose France’s inhumane treatment of prisoners. Founded by Michel Foucault and others in 1970–71, the Prisons Information Group (GIP) circulated information about the inhumane conditions within the French prison system. Intolerable makes available for the first time in English a fully annotated compilation of materials produced by the GIP during its brief but influential exi…Read more
  •  31
    Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry
    University of Minnesota Press. 2021.
    A trailblazing exploration of the political stakes of curiosity. Perry Zurn explores the political philosophy of curiosity—the heartbeat of political resistance and a critical factor in social justice. Drawing on philosophy and political theory as well as feminist theory, race theory, disability studies, and trans studies, he tracks curiosity in the structures of political marginalization and resistance.
  •  52
    The Politics of Anonymity: Foucault, Feminism, and Gender Non-conforming Prisoners
    philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism 6 (1): 27-42. 2016.
    Against the backdrop of a longstanding feminist critique that Michel Foucault’s call to anonymity is insensitive to the erasure of marginalized persons, I aim to contribute to a critical account of anonymity as a feminist Foucauldian ideal. I do this in two ways. First, I analyze the tactical role of anonymity in the Prisons Information Group, an organization in which Foucault was involved. Second, I analyze the unique paradoxes of anonymity faced by gender non-conforming prisoners then and now.…Read more
  •  33
    After reviewing the use of isolation in US prisons and public restrooms to confine transgender people in solitary cells and single‐occupancy bathrooms, I propose an explanatory theory of eliminative space. I argue that prisons and toilets are eliminative spaces: that is, spaces of waste management that use layers of isolation to sanctify social or individual waste, at the outer and inner limits of society. As such, they function according to an eliminative logic. Eliminative logic, as I develop …Read more