Philosophy

Even some vigorous critics of Kantian ethics hold his theory in high esteem, and single it out as a paradigmatic moral theory. Among the attractive features of Kantian ethics are the strict insistence upon universality coupled with the equally strong claim of the inherent worth of each ...

This anthology is designed as a corrective to the curriculum and scholarship in Political Science and Philosophy covering  the modern period - 17th-19th centuries. The selection here contains the Table of Contents, the general introduction, and the introduction to Chapter One on John Locke and Mary Astell.

Each chapter pairs a canonical figure with a woman/person of color who was writing about the similar issues in the same period.  In addition to Locke and the astoundingly brilliant and prolific Mary Astell, sections include Wollstonecraft paired with both Rousseau and Burke, James Madison and Mercy Otis Warren, John Stuart Mill and his contemporary, a former indentured servant, Maria W. Stewart who wrote at length about African American rights and liberty.  There are also selections from Marx, Frederick Douglass, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Anna Julia Cooper.

The introductions distill the ideas of the lesser known writers in relation to the canon, making the work accessible to all. If you are interested in a copy of this book and are not eligible for a desk copy from Wiley, I have a limited number of copies that I'm willing to gift to those who would make good use of this work.
Kristin Waters

In April of 1993, the South Australia state government approved the building of a bridge in South Australia from a location about 60 miles south of Adelaide to a tranquil sandy island called "Hindmarsh." Five months later a group of Ngarrindjeri, Aboriginal Australians, filed for ...

This pdf contains the Table of Contents and Introduction to Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds (Burlington: University of Vermont, 2007), co-edited by Kristin Waters and Carol B. Conaway.  Also included from the book: "Some Core Themes in Nineteenth-Century Black Feminism," by Kristin Waters.  The volume, which contains 19 essays on authors such as Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Frances E. W. Harper, Pauline Hopkins, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Anna Julia Cooper, and Ida B. Wells, was a recipient of the 2007 Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians,

This chapter questions aspects of postmodern theory. The destabilization of the idea of identity and subjectivity occurs at a time when identity politics begin to make important political inroads.  The new trend sometimes valorizes style of substance.  An analogy is drawn between Berkeley's attack on abstract ideas during the rise of the demand for rights of man, and the current demand for the rights of women.

In this paper I argue in the 1820s and 1830s Maria W. Stewart and David Walker articulated a theory of Black Revolutionary (or Radical) Liberalism that gave expression to Black thought in the US ranging from the Revolutionary Era to 1830s.  I articulate five arguments that they provide in support of the theory along with responses to critics. This theory has major importance today as the protogenitors of the radical liberalism put forward by the philosopher Charles W. Mills.
Citation: Africana Philosophy: Analysis of Philosophical Issues in Africa and the Black Diaspora, Vol. 15. No. 1, Winter 2013. 35-59. Author: Kristin Waters

How can white feminists productively engage with black feminist thought and practice? What are some of the excuses and stumbling blocks white feminists use and encounter that circumvent alliance with black feminists and others at the intersections of different raced and gendered realities? This essay suggests the need to further a comprehensive epistemological framework, one that distinguishes between a willful ignorance that reinforces hegemonic whiteness and the reflexivity required to move towards dismantling willful ignorance, improving knowledge projects, and creating liberatory frameworks and alliances.