Andrea and All, 

Shelly's observations are, indeed, important, critical -- nay, vital-- to any ongoing credible and substantive discussion of disability exclusion in the field of philosophy. Unfortunately, her observations cut across areas of life, including life in the academy. Equally unfortunate is the fact that her reminders echo those Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Simone de Beauvoir, The Combahee River Collective... we can go back to Sojourner Truth, on the subject of inclusion and exclusion in the academy and elsewhere. In their time (and, for some, even today) the words of all of these women were characterized as 'divisive'. It seems that justice-making continues to be the work to which each of us must re-commit ourselves, every day and everywhere. 

A lifelong philosopher with education privilege, but lacking academic status, 

Frances Wood 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrea Nicki" <[log in to unmask]> 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2013 5:16:08 PM 
Subject: Re: Whose Diversity? Which Inclusion? 


Dear Shelley, thanks for sharing an eloquent excerpt from your introduction to the important issue of DSQ on Improving Feminist Philosophy by Taking Account of Disability. I hope that feminist philosophers in positions of power will read the issue and have the courage and social conscience to challenge their biases about who counts as a philosopher and what counts as philosophy, biases that benefit some feminist philosophers at the expense of others who are left to struggle with underemployment and professional exclusion. I hope that feminist philosophers in positions of power will have the courage and social conscience to challenge the ongoing promotion of a narrowly defined feminist philosophical establishment and a narrow conception of philosophical rigor. 

In solidarity, Andrea Nicki 

_________________ ____________________ ___________ 
Faculty Lecturer , Narrative Medicine 
and Applied Health Ethics 
Simon Fraser University 
www.andreanicki.com 
Author of Welcoming and Noble Orphan 
www.amazon.com 



In a message dated 04/06/2013 9:41:00 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: 



Dear All, 
I have copied below an excerpt from my introduction to "Improving Feminist Philosophy and Theory By Taking Account of Disability," the awesome special issue of Disability Studies Quarterly (forthcoming in October) that I have guest-edited: 


"In May of this year, the APA Committee for the Status of Women in Philosophy and the Task Force on Women in Philosophy, in collaboration with other bodies of influence within the APA (the Inclusiveness Committee, the Committee on the Status of Blacks in Philosophy, the Pacific Division, the national APA) and the University of Dayton held a three-day conference whose theme was “Diversity in Philosophy.” None of the three feminist philosophers who organized the conference (all three of whom are nondisabled heterosexual white women), nor any of the several members of the program committee, nor any of the several keynote speakers is a specialist in philosophy of disability. Once again, the knowledge and perspectives of disabled philosophers and philosophers of disability were not regarded as central to—as vital to—intersectional analyses in feminist philosophy; to conceptions of “diversity” and inclusion that circulate in the profession; to discussion of how to promote an expansive philosophy curriculum; or to consideration of how to improve working conditions in the profession. Nor was there any indication in the initial call for papers for the conference—which circulated on various blogs, list-servs, and other social media and was posted to the Committee for the Status of Women in Philosophy website —whether ASL, CART, attendant services, or other accessibility services or provisions would be available at the event or what procedures prospective disabled presenters should follow to make these arrangements. Indeed, only after I drew attention to the irony of this state of affairs on a feminist philosophy list-serv —pointing out how the very wording of the call for papers itself in fact showed that disability (as well as sexuality) had been added on to a prior, less inclusive, conceptualization of the conference—was the initial cfp on the Committee for the Status of Women website revised to indicate that the program would include a panel on disability and accessibility and that accessibility requirements would be made available upon request, with instructions provided about whom to contact to make these arrangements. In short, there was no involvement of disabled philosophers or philosophers of disability, either as organizers, participants, or attendees incorporated into the design and planning of the conference from the outset , an exclusion that reinforces prevailing prejudices and biases about who counts as a philosopher and what counts as philosophy, how philosophers should conceive “diversity” in the profession and discipline, and what philosophers require to do their work, while simultaneously reproducing the asymmetrical relation of privilege and subordination between nondisabled and disabled philosophers that exists in feminist philosophy and the broader discipline of philosophy." 







Shelley Tremain is a disabled, white, working-class, vegan, femme-identifying, and bisexual feminist philosopher who holds a PhD in philosophy from York University (Canada), where she wrote a dissertation on disability and Anglo-American theories of justice. She has been actively involved in efforts to diversify the demographics and subject-matter of philosophy and feminist philosophy, especially with respect to disability. She has also published widely on philosophy of disability, ableism in feminist philosophy, Foucault, racism, genetic technologies, and bioethics and is a member of the editorial boards of three of the leading journals in disability studies. She is editor of Foucault and the Government of Disability (University of Michigan Press, 2005), an expanded and updated tenth-anniversary edition of which is forthcoming in late 2014, and her monograph Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability is forthcoming in 2015. Like the first edition of Foucault and the Government of Disability , both of the latter books will be published in Corporealities: Discourses on Disability, the critically-acclaimed series from The University of Michigan Press. Shelley has written and produced community radio programming on disabled women, curated a ground-breaking multi-disciplinary program of visual art, spoken word, and writing by disabled lesbians and Two-Spirited women for A Space Gallery in Toronto, and was featured in the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA) Exhibit “Pride & Prejudice: Three Decades of LGBT Community Organizing.” She currently works as a disability consultant and anti-ableism trainer at St. Joseph's Immigrant Women’s Centre (IWC) in Hamilton, Ontario, where she is developing a multi-year accessibility plan and anti-ableist training program that will enable the four locations of IWC to better address the needs of disabled newcomers to Canada, including disabled refugees steadily arriving in Canada from Iraq. 





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