•  4
    The “Civilization of the Universal”
    Puncta 6 (1): 19-42. 2023.
    The intersectionality argument originating in Black feminism challenges the preponderance of “single-axis thinking” (Crenshaw), and the decolonial critique of Eurocentrism challenges the assumption of neutral universality or “zero-point hubris” (Castro-Gómez) on the part of colonial thinking. Inspired by these challenges, this paper brings decolonial, intersectional, and phenomenological thought into conversation to consider how philosophical thinking can operate in light of these risks. The fir…Read more
  •  11
    In Sites of Exposure, John Russon draws on the resources of phenomenology to describe how human life, while not having a “given” form specified in advance, nonetheless takes speci????ic shape through practices by which we become committed to certain ways of living. This means that our lives are simultaneously a matter of living with a speci????ic reality—what Russon calls “home”—and having to respond to an outside to which we are “exposed.” I argue here that Russon’s analysis is especially usefu…Read more
  •  12
    Accounts of sexual experience, sexual oppression, and sexual violation, if they are not to lend support to the problems they are invoked to address, require the foundation of a phenomenological description of the character of experience. Relying on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I aim to provide this foundation, arguing that sexual experience is a domain not of detached, individual autonomy but of intrinsic susceptibility and exposure to the world. My description of sexual experience is intended to reve…Read more
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    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Betrayal of Substance: Death, Literature, and Sexual Difference in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” by Mary C. RawlinsonShannon Hoff (bio)Mary C. Rawlinson, The Betrayal of Substance: Death, Literature, and Sexual Difference in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” New York: University Press, 2021, 215 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-19905-6Mary rawlinson shows that to be genuinely receptive to a philosophical text one must be creati…Read more
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    16. Hegel and the Possibility of Intercultural Criticism
    In Susan M. Dodd & Neil G. Robertson (eds.), Hegel and Canada: Unity of Opposites?, University of Toronto Press. pp. 342-367. 2018.
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    Translating Principle into Practice: On Derrida and the Terms of Feminism
    Journal of Speculative Philosophy 29 (3): 403-414. 2015.
    ABSTRACT One of Derrida's most significant insights concerns the irreducibility yet interdependence of unconditioned ideal and conditioned actuality. First, relying especially on the concept of hospitality, I argue that this insight allows for the development of a powerful account of ethical and political action. Second, I show the usefulness of this account for feminist critical practice, especially with regard to the ideal of inclusion and the concept of “woman.” Third, and finally, I explore …Read more
  •  1
    Locke and the Nature of Political Authority
    Review of Politics 77 (1): 1-22. 2015.
    This paper aims to illuminate the ongoing significance of Locke’s political philosophy. It argues that the legitimacy of political authority lies, for Locke, in the extent to which it collaborates with individuals so as to allow them to be themselves more effectively, and in its answerability in principle to the consent such individuals should thereby give it. The first section discusses how the free will inevitably asserts its authority; the second shows the inevitability of the will’s incorpor…Read more
  •  6
    The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice
    State University of New York Press. 2014.
    _An account of Hegel's political insights and their contemporary relevance._
  •  1
    Law, Love, and Life
    Philosophy Today 54 (Supplement): 163-168. 2010.
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    Inheriting Identity and Practicing Transformation: The Time of Feminist Politics
    philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Continental Feminism 2 (2): 167-193. 2012.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Inheriting Identity and Practicing TransformationThe Time of Feminist PoliticsShannon HoffA human life unfolds over time. No moment of it can be considered apart from the others, independently of the fact that the human being was and will be, and so no moment is sufficient on its own to tell us of the nature of that identity. Each moment is insufficient as an expression of who we are, as an answer to the question of what we want to b…Read more
  •  107
    Many feminist and other interpreters of the Phenomenology of Spirit have misconstrued the motive behind Hegel’s representation of ethical life and his assessment of Antigone’s agency in its downfall. Upon developing an alternative interpretation, based on Hegel’s challenge of ethical life’s purportedly immediate reading of the meaning of sexual difference, this paper assesses several prominent feminist interpretations in its light. Hegel’s critique of the unstable and unsustainable relationship …Read more
  •  4
    The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice
    State University of New York Press. 2014.
    Drawing from a variety of Hegel’s writings, Shannon Hoff articulates a theory of justice that requires answering simultaneously to three irreducibly different demands: those of community, universality, and individuality. The domains of “ethicality,” “legality,” and “morality” correspond to these essential dimensions of human experience, and a political system that fails to give adequate recognition to any one of these will become oppressive. The commitment to legality emphasized in modern and co…Read more
  •  18
    Rights and Worlds: On the Political Significance of Belonging
    Philosophical Forum 45 (4): 355-373. 2014.
    Modernity is characterized by an assertion of the individual as a singular unit of significance, and its various systems (political, legal, economic, etc.) take their lead from a commitment to the individual as the bearer of rights. While a powerful accomplishment, this idea is also problematic: it does not adequately recognize how the individual it prioritizes would itself point to other contexts of significance by which its experience is rendered meaningful. This paper explores this basic tens…Read more
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    Preface
    Studies in Practical Philosophy 3 (2): 1-3. 2003.
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    Frantz Fanon’s theoretical and practical challenge is to identify how self-determination is possible for a subject whose agency and significance have, through colonization, been appropriated and shaped by others, a challenge to which he responds with the invocation of “national consciousness.” In this paper I describe this national consciousness and show how its exclusivity paradoxically establishes the ground for a kind of international or universal inclusiveness. I differentiate this inclusive…Read more