Nancy Tuana
Penn State University, Philosophy, Department Member
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Racial Climates, Ecological Indifference offers a powerful intervention to the field of climate justice scholarship by addressing a neglected aspect of the field of climate justice, namely systemic racisms. Building on the work of Black... more
Racial Climates, Ecological Indifference offers a powerful intervention to the field of climate justice scholarship by addressing a neglected aspect of the field of climate justice, namely systemic racisms. Building on the work of Black feminist theorists, the work develops an ecointersectional approach designed to reveal the depth and complexities of racial climates overlooked even in the environmental justice literature. The book’s conception of ecological indifference underscores the disposition of seeing the environment as a resource for human consumption and enjoyment, a resource that is usable, fungible, disposable, and without intrinsic worth or standing. The many examples in the book offer new insights demonstrating that systemic racisms emerge out of and give rise to environmental degradation; that is, they are often mutually constitutive. The ecointersectional analyses provided throughout the book reveal that ecological indifference and climate injustice are two sides of the same coin. Three distinctive but interrelated domains in which the intersections between systemic racisms and ecological indifference are manifest are identified: (1) differential distribution of harms/benefits due to systemic racisms, (2) racist institutions and practices fueling or causing environmental degradation, and (3) the basic social structures that generate environmental degradation being the same ones that generate systemic oppression of certain groups of people. One of the aims of Racial Climates, Ecological Indifference is to underscore that any effort to protect the environment must also be a fight against systemic racisms and other forms of systemic inequity.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article traces public debates about sexual practices that have found their way into recent philosophical and other academic publications. It examines the ideals and standards some ethicists have proposed for guiding our sexual lives,... more
This article traces public debates about sexual practices that have found their way into recent philosophical and other academic publications. It examines the ideals and standards some ethicists have proposed for guiding our sexual lives, even those lived away from the public spotlight. Many debates about sex concern sexual practices that transgress long-standing sexual mores, practices such as extramarital sex, same-sex sex, and paid sex. Debates about transgressive sexual acts often focus on whether the traditional social barriers against them are rationally defensible. Other debates about sex concern sexual practices that involve harm, coercion, or social subordination, such as rape, pornography, harassment, and ‘unsafe’ sex.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This white paper provides an overview of priorities related to community resilience to flooding that emerged during a 27 September 2019 meeting with local, regional and state representatives in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. The document... more
This white paper provides an overview of priorities related to community resilience to flooding that emerged during a 27 September 2019 meeting with local, regional and state representatives in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. The document compiles workshop details, participants and a summary of discussions and outcomes. It does not, however, attempt to provide a comprehensive listing of every topic raised by participants. In addition, this workshop was held before the advent of covid-19; the impacts of this pandemic are not addressed in this document.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Climate risks are growing. Research is increasingly important to inform the design of strategies to manage these risks. But the relevance of many research studies to real- world decisions can be limited due to misalignment of values.... more
Climate risks are growing. Research is increasingly important to inform the design of strategies to manage these risks. But the relevance of many research studies to real- world decisions can be limited due to misalignment of values. There is no value-neutral strategy assessment, and the values assumed (often implicitly) within research need not align with those of stakeholders and decision makers—leading to inappropriate policy advice. Transdisciplinary projects need frameworks and guidance to integrate values into research assessing potential responses to climate risks. Here we describe and demonstrate a qualitative conceptual tool—the values-informed mental model (ViMM)— for visualizing the intersection of stakeholder values and coupled natural-human system dynamics. We define a visual language for ViMMs, describe accompanying practices and workflows, and present an illustrative example. ViMMs are useful for integrating inputs from diverse collaborators to support the design of r...
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology and Forgetting
For computer simulation models to usefully inform climate risk management, uncertainties in model projections must be explored and characterized. Because doing so requires running the model many times over, and because computing resources... more
For computer simulation models to usefully inform climate risk management, uncertainties in model projections must be explored and characterized. Because doing so requires running the model many times over, and because computing resources are finite, uncertainty assessment is more feasible using models that demand less computer processor time. Such models are generally simpler in the sense of being more idealized, or less realistic. So modelers face a trade-off between realism and uncertainty quantification. Seeing this trade-off for the important epistemic issue that it is requires a shift in perspective from the established simplicity literature in philosophy of science.
Research Interests:
We provide an overview of a transdisciplinary project about sustainable forest management under climate change. Our project is a partnership with members of the Menominee Nation, a Tribal Nation located in northern Wisconsin, United... more
We provide an overview of a transdisciplinary project about sustainable forest management under climate change. Our project is a partnership with members of the Menominee Nation, a Tribal Nation located in northern Wisconsin, United States. We use immersive virtual experiences, translated from ecosystem model outcomes, to elicit human values about future forest conditions under alternative scenarios. Our project combines expertise across the sciences and humanities as well as across cultures and knowledge systems. Our management structure, governance, and leadership behaviors have both fostered and constrained our work and must be continuously responsive to changing group dynamics. Our project presents opportunities for substantial contributions to society, including insights and knowledge about complementary ways of knowing, skills training, and professional development, and opportunities for reflexive learning about effective transdisciplinary, translational, and transformative scientific processes.
Research Interests:
Climate Change and Place Nancy Rottle and Marina Alberti Climate change has been called the defining issue of the twenty-first century, and it is undoubtedly one of the supreme challenges for environmental designers. A mul- titude of... more
Climate Change and Place Nancy Rottle and Marina Alberti Climate change has been called the defining issue of the twenty-first century, and it is undoubtedly one of the supreme challenges for environmental designers. A mul- titude of scientific studies now report that its disruptive effects will be felt worldwide in terms of both dramatic weather events and more gradual shifts in rainfall, tem- perature, and species habitat. Most acute among its effects—already tragically felt in some places—will be the displacement of human commu- nities by more frequent and intense storms and prolonged droughts. But gradual shifts will also be powerful agents of social change. Rising sea levels may flood coastal settle- ments and infrastructure; water shortages and higher tem- peratures will endanger agriculture and public health. As populations are displaced, global economic and political destabilization may result, catapulting environ- mental concern from a perceived luxury of the rich to a vital concern for all. The impacts of climate change will be felt everywhere: by those inland and on the coasts, in urban as well as rural areas, and in the developed and developing worlds. But it will be the poorest populations, in both rural and urban areas, who will be most at risk. This disparity raises important concerns for social equity and responsibil- ity, because the effects of climate change have been largely brought about by the greenhouse gas-emitting actions of wealthy nations. What responsibility does the developed world have to the developing world? How might planners and designers help address this inequity? The effects of climate change will also be felt soonest at the extremes and on the edges. In the far northern and southern latitudes dramatically warmer winter tempera- tures are already melting glaciers and ice sheets. In Earth’s driest and wettest regions, changes in precipitation are altering conditions of survival for sensitive species. And at higher elevations rare, endemic species are being threat- ened with extinction. Historic patterns and practices are no longer reli- Rottle and Alberti / Climate Change and Place
Research Interests: Engineering, Design, Architecture, Climate Change, Climate, and 13 moreLandscape, Planning, Urban Design, Placemaking, Change, Public Realm, Volume, Nancy, Alberti, Places, Issue, Environment, and Marina
This article traces public debates about sexual practices that have found their way into recent philosophical and other academic publications. It examines the ideals and standards some ethicists have proposed for guiding our sexual lives,... more
This article traces public debates about sexual practices that have found their way into recent philosophical and other academic publications. It examines the ideals and standards some ethicists have proposed for guiding our sexual lives, even those lived away from the public spotlight. Many debates about sex concern sexual practices that transgress long-standing sexual mores, practices such as extramarital sex, same-sex sex, and paid sex. Debates about transgressive sexual acts often focus on whether the traditional social barriers against them are rationally defensible. Other debates about sex concern sexual practices that involve harm, coercion, or social subordination, such as rape, pornography, harassment, and ‘unsafe’ sex.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
We are concerned with borders and their crucial importance in people's lives. Throughout we place emphasis on liberatory critique and knowledge and on the importance of the forces lineages exercise in the ways we live. How might we... more
We are concerned with borders and their crucial importance in people's lives. Throughout we place emphasis on liberatory critique and knowledge and on the importance of the forces lineages exercise in the ways we live. How might we speak of whatever is bordered and allow that of which we speak its manifest differences? How are we able to engage differences and maintain our own differences? How might we, as philosophers, speak philosophically about what is beyond philosophy? Such speaking would constitute an art, a philosophical art, that is guided by unspeakable differences. After developing the concepts of border, in-between, sensibility, and mutations of lineages, we turn to Gloria Anzaldúa's accounts of border awareness and her experiences of it. Through an engagement with her account of nepantla, we offer reflections on the force that “beyond” can have in the happenings of liberatory philosophies. In doing so, we emphasize her conceptions of border arte and her manner of...
Research Interests:
To claim that “humans have become a geological agent,” to worry that “humans are interrupting, refashioning, and accelerating natural processes” is to reinforce metaphysical divides—humans and nature, the cultural and the natural. It is... more
To claim that “humans have become a geological agent,” to worry that “humans are interrupting, refashioning, and accelerating natural processes” is to reinforce metaphysical divides—humans and nature, the cultural and the natural. It is furthermore to reinforce all the narratives from which these divides are animated: modernity, colonialization, enlightenment with their attendant discourses of progress, control, and purity. In its place I advocate Anthropocenean sensibilities. Sensibilities in which our attentiveness to influences and exchanges becomes heightened, where we learn to live in the midst of change, with a new responsiveness to uncertainties that render not-knowing animating rather than paralyzing.
Research Interests:
Despite recognition of the gender dimensions of climate change, there is little attention to racism in climate justice perspectives. In response, this article advocates developing an ecologically informed intersectional approach designed... more
Despite recognition of the gender dimensions of climate change, there is little attention to racism in climate justice perspectives. In response, this article advocates developing an ecologically informed intersectional approach designed to disclose the ways racism contributes to the construction of illegible lives in the domain of climate policies and practices. Differential impacts of climate change, while an important dimension, is ultimately inadequate to understanding and responding to both climate justice and environmental racism. What is required is a rich understanding of the histories and lineages of the deep incorporation of racism and environmental exploitation. To catalyze such an approach to climate justice, this article develops an analysis of three instances of the intermingling of racism and environmental exploitation: climate adaptation practices in Lagos, Nigeria; the enmeshment of race and coal mining in the post–Civil War United States; and the infusing of precar...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The primary goal of this article is to find an interplay of concepts that will help us to write about the broad transformative potential of Gloria Anzaldúa's experiences of what she calls nepantla in her posthumously published Light... more
The primary goal of this article is to find an interplay of concepts that will help us to write about the broad transformative potential of Gloria Anzaldúa's experiences of what she calls nepantla in her posthumously published Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality (2015). We want to integrate these concepts into our reading of her account of nepantla and to allow her language to further animate the force and meaning of the concepts' interactive connections. The concepts are assemblage, occasion, lineages, sensibility, and temporality. The article concludes with her own culminating understanding of nepantla. The leading topics are Anzaldúa's world, the Coyolxauhqui process, rebirth, and cuerpoespíritu.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In this paper we desire to trouble various sites of borders, such as nature and culture, subject and object, and habits of thought and institutional structures. We will develop and elaborate an ontology of the in-between. Through a study... more
In this paper we desire to trouble various sites of borders, such as nature and culture, subject and object, and habits of thought and institutional structures. We will develop and elaborate an ontology of the in-between. Through a study of how beings and differences happen, we aim to disrupt and displace legacies of a substance ontology, with its substantive divisions between events and things, in order to encourage an event or concrescent ontology. We argue that the in-between is a continual, mutational happening, a reminder of the deep interconnectivity of what William James called “things in the making.” To disrupt the habits of thought and action sedimented by a substance ontology, we deploy four concepts: viscous porosity, corporal vulnerability, imporing, and anonymous agency. Our goal is to develop alertness to a dimension of in-between in which conscious connectedness happens without objectification.
Research Interests:
This essay offers an overview of feminist philosophical reflections on climate change. Feminist philosophical work in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of science, and environmental studies, as well as feminist ethical and... more
This essay offers an overview of feminist philosophical reflections on climate change. Feminist philosophical work in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of science, and environmental studies, as well as feminist ethical and social/political perspectives have the potential to make essential contributions to discourses on climate change. In particular, a feminist philosophical lens is particularly salient in identifying gendered conceptualizations in climate change knowledge (sciences, including the social sciences) and practices (policy and activist responses). These gendered constructions are often less visible than the differential impacts of climate change on the lives of women and men, but as they permeate what we know and do not know, what we value and value less, as well as how we do and do not act, they are essential to gender justice in the context of climate change.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A key theme of feminist science studies theorists is the question of whose interests are served by the knowledge that mainstream science deems worthy of development, and whose interests are served by the knowledge projects that are... more
A key theme of feminist science studies theorists is the question of whose interests are served by the knowledge that mainstream science deems worthy of development, and whose interests are served by the knowledge projects that are overlooked or ignored. A central concern animating this analysis is thus whether we have the knowledge we need to ensure climate justice. The aim of this essay is to catalyze a new climate change research agenda designed to locate epistemic gaps and injustices, to reveal the circulations of power regarding what is known and what remains unknown, to render transparent the ways in which knowledge is framed, and to examine whose interests are served by our current knowledges and ignorances about anthropogenic climate change. My analysis includes not only scientific approaches to climate change, but also the gendering of knowledges and ignorances in the work of theorists studying the topic of gender and climate change.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Concerns about the risks of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions are growing. At the same time, confidence is declining that international policy agreements will succeed in considerably lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.... more
Concerns about the risks of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions are growing. At the same time, confidence is declining that international policy agreements will succeed in considerably lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps as a result, various geoengineering solutions are gaining attention and credibility as a way to manage climate change. Serious consideration is currently being given to proposals to cool the planet through solar-radiation management (SRM). Here we analyze how the unique and ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In this essay we develop and argue for the adoption of a more comprehensive model of research ethics than is included within current conceptions of responsible conduct of research (RCR). We argue that our model, which we label the Ethical... more
In this essay we develop and argue for the adoption of a more comprehensive model of research ethics than is included within current conceptions of responsible conduct of research (RCR). We argue that our model, which we label the Ethical Dimensions of Scientific Research (EDSR), is a more comprehensive approach to encouraging ethically responsible scientific research compared to the currently typically adopted approach in RCR training. This essay focuses on developing a pedagogical approach that enables scientists to better understand and appreciate one important component of this model, what we call intrinsic ethics. Intrinsic ethical issues arise when values and ethical assumptions are embedded within scientific findings and analytical methods. Through a close examination of a case study and its application in teaching, namely, evaluation of climate change integrated assessment models, this paper develops a method and case for including intrinsic ethics within research ethics tra...
Research Interests: Sociology, Computer Science, Ethics, Applied Ethics, Climate Change, and 15 moreResearch Ethics, Science, Integrated assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Medicine, Teaching, Social Responsibility, Humans, Case Study, Economics of Climate Change, Analytical Method, Social Values, Scientific Research, Ethical Issues, and Ethics Research
Abstract: We analyze the contribution of the NSF Broader Impacts Criterion (BIC) in illuminating the need for broader conception of research ethics in the sciences. This essay advocates augmenting traditional Responsible Conduct of... more
Abstract: We analyze the contribution of the NSF Broader Impacts Criterion (BIC) in illuminating the need for broader conception of research ethics in the sciences. This essay advocates augmenting traditional Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) education (procedural ethics) with training regarding broader impacts (extrinsic ethics). We argue that enhancing research ethics training in this way provides a more comprehensive understanding of the ethics relevant to scientific research and prepares scientists to think not only in terms of a responsible science, but also the role of science in responding to identified social needs, namely a responsive
Research Interests:
This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist new materialism, including examples of important contributions to this discussion, as well as current and future directions. The chapter discusses three different... more
This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist new materialism, including examples of important contributions to this discussion, as well as current and future directions. The chapter discusses three different sources for the conception of materialism engaged in the feminist new materialisms: (1) attention to materiality in the philosophical traditions of phenomenology and postmodern thought, (2) a turn to the sciences to better understand materiality, and (3) Marxist-inspired conceptions of materiality. The chapter also reflects on the meaning of “new” in feminist new materialism.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... Wendy BrownSorcerer love, a reading of Plato's Symposium, Diotima's speech/Luce IrigarayIrigaray and Diotima at Plato's Symposium /Andrea NyeOvercoming dualism/Cynthia HamptonThe presence and absence of the feminine... more
... Wendy BrownSorcerer love, a reading of Plato's Symposium, Diotima's speech/Luce IrigarayIrigaray and Diotima at Plato's Symposium /Andrea NyeOvercoming dualism/Cynthia HamptonThe presence and absence of the feminine in Plato's philosophy/Nancy Tuana ...
Research Interests:
Climate change is one of the central challenges facing African countries and their people. Unless concerted efforts are made worldwide very soon to reduce emissions, climate change impacts are likely to be devastating. Higher-end... more
Climate change is one of the central challenges facing African countries and their people. Unless concerted efforts are made worldwide very soon to reduce emissions, climate change impacts are likely to be devastating. Higher-end temperature scenarios present a dark future jeopardizing secure access to basic needs such as water, food, housing and a healthy environment, as well as adding to the stressors on natural resources. Those who will suffer the most from the challenges posed by climate change have contributed the least to the problem in the first place: the poor and vulnerable, especially in developing countries. To make matters worse, these are the same people who have benefited the least from modernisation and industrialisation and have a relatively small carbon footprint. This is a double injustice. While climate justice and social justice are difficult to disentangle, neither the legal systems nor the main actors framing the dominant climate change narratives seem sufficie...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Editors' Introduction to the Special Issue of Hypatia, "Toward Decolonial Feminisms: Tracing the Lineages of Decolonial Thinking Through Latin American/Latinx Feminist Philosophy." For the full issue see:... more
The Editors' Introduction to the Special Issue of Hypatia, "Toward Decolonial Feminisms: Tracing the Lineages of Decolonial Thinking Through Latin American/Latinx Feminist Philosophy."
For the full issue see: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/issue/toward-decolonial-feminisms-tracing-the-lineages-of-decolonial-thinking-through-latin-americanlatinx-feminist-philosophy/A6D10B66EEDA6742DDFEBB83E57C39E8?fbclid=IwAR2I8ejWYRvfzJ2ThDF8GOuIWvdVrf7vD9L16gpgI192lSNFUQdVJEjp2fA
For the full issue see: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/issue/toward-decolonial-feminisms-tracing-the-lineages-of-decolonial-thinking-through-latin-americanlatinx-feminist-philosophy/A6D10B66EEDA6742DDFEBB83E57C39E8?fbclid=IwAR2I8ejWYRvfzJ2ThDF8GOuIWvdVrf7vD9L16gpgI192lSNFUQdVJEjp2fA