SUNY series, Feminist Philosophy – serie

Provides the first English translation of the Tibetan and Chinese texts on monastic discipline for Buddhist nuns and presents a comparative study of the two texts. An important contribution for studies of women's history, feminist philosophy, women's studies, women in religion, and feminist ethics.This study is an investigation of the moral precepts and codes of everyday conduct by which ordained women regulated their lives. It takes as its basis the Bhikṣuṇī Prātimokṣa Sūtras of the Dharmagupta school, preserved in Chinese translation, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda school, preserved in Tibetan translation.For over two thousand years, Buddhist nuns have quietly embodied specific moral and spiritual values on their path to enlightenment. Contemplative communities offered women both an alternative lifestyle and an avenue for education. Numbering as many as one million at certain periods of history, they have exerted powerful, if often unacknowledged, influence on Asian societies.Sisters in Solitude documents the earliest recorded system of ethics formulated especially for women and presents the first English translations of the original texts. An essential sourcebook for studies on women's religious history and feminist ethics, it details the monastic guidelines that link Buddhist nuns of the different traditions. The texts it contains unite women of many cultures.

Challenges Beauvoir's self-portrait and argues that she was a philosopher in her own right.The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities sees Beauvoir as engaged in a three-way conversation with Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Like Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir took up the legacies of the modern and phenomenological philosophical traditions. Unlike them, however, she attended to the phenomenological implications of the sexed body, pursued the idea of ambiguity and developed the philosophical category of the erotic.This book reads Beauvoir as speaking in two philosophical voices; a familiar existential voice and an unfamiliar voice that speaks of the other, generosity, the gift and the ethical possibilities of the erotic event.

Illuminates the lives and thought of women in Buddhist cultures, integrating them more fully into the feminist conversation.Scholars and practitioners from a variety of Buddhist cultures, philosophical traditions, and academic disciplines analyze important dimensions of the new cross-cultural Buddhist women's movement: the status and experiences of women in Buddhist societies, feminist interpretation of Buddhist tenets, and the relationship of women to Buddhist institutions. Buddhist Women Across Cultures documents both women's struggle for religious equality in Asian Buddhist cultures as well as the process of creating Buddhist feminist identity across national and ethnic boundaries as Buddhism gains attention in the West. The book contributes significantly to an understanding of women and religion in both Western and non-Western cultures.[Contributors include Paula Arai, Cait Collins, Lorna Devaraja, Beata Grant, Rita Gross, Theja Gunawardhana, Elizabeth Harris, Anne Klein, Sarah Pinto, Dharmacharini Sanghadevi, Sara Shneiderman, Haeju Sunim (Ho-Ryeaon Jeon), Senarat Wijayasundara, and Janice D. Willis.]

Incorporates memoir in the context of philosophical and political theory and argument.Presenting essays rich with her own personal experiences, philosopher Linda A. Bell examines not only her own life but also problems arising from ways that living affects thinking. She reflects on her own experience in order to challenge a variety of provocative claims, including: that affirmative action harms those it is designed to help; that suicide, while perhaps acceptable for some with fatal diseases, is otherwise a manifestation of mental illness; that women are to blame for male violence toward them if they don't leave the relationships; that a low profile is the best path to success for women in academe; that women are treated fairly in academe, perhaps even better than men; and that "political correctness" is a recent and aberrant move away from respect for freedom of speech. Although drawing from experience as she creates and critiques theory, Bell argues against the view that it is the bedrock of theory.

The lesbians who have contributed to this book are theorists and activists who write as members of diverse lesbian cultures. Each lesbian has her ways of knowing, her voices, approaches, methodologies, languages. Each lesbian reflects, directly and indirectly, her relations to her own and to other ethnicities, races, social classes, physical abilities, ages, and nationalities. Each lesbian has distinctive perspectives on lesbian existence, friendships and sexualities, separatism and coalition building, theories of knowledge and ethics, language and writing. Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures is a hybrid site for discussion of, work on, and delight in this sometimes uneasy, sometimes painful, sometimes surprising and wonderful, lesbian pluralism.For this collection, some of the contributors have chosen to write in essay style, and some have chosen to write in fiction, autobiography, poetic prose and experimental forms. The contributors, all of whom live currently in the u.s.a. or quebec, are: Joyce Trebilcot, Vivienne Louise, Kitty Tsui, Ann Ferguson, Julia Penelope, Marthe Rosenfeld, Claudia Card, Anna Lee, María Lugones, Edwina Franchild, Caryatis Cardea, Baba Copper, Bette S. Tallen, Michèle Causse, Sarah Lucia Hoagland, Nett Hart, Marilyn Frye, Kim Hall, Jacquelyn N. Zita, Monique Wittig, Nicole Brossard, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Jeffner Allen.

This book contains readings of canonical Western philosophical texts from the viewpoint of current feminist thinking. The contributors focus specifically on the ways in which modern Western philosophy constructs genders and analyzes gender relations. They provide a detailed analysis of modern philosophers' conceptions of masculinity and femininity and call attention to the intertwining of gender with conceptual schema and networks.

This book introduces feminist voices into the study of Platonic and Aristotelian texts that modern Western philosophy has treated as foundational. The book concerns the extent to which Platonic and Aristotelian texts are (un)redeemably sexist, masculinist, or phallocentric.

This book introduces feminist voices into the study of Platonic and Aristotelian texts that modern Western philosophy has treated as foundational. The book concerns the extent to which Platonic and Aristotelian texts are (un)redeemably sexist, masculinist, or phallocentric.

Dyke Ideas is a passionate and insightful contribution to lesbian philosophy. The main value is wimmin-women separate from men and men's inventions. "Craziness," guilt, competition, sex, and other topics are explored in ways that reject male values and move toward wimmin-identified cultures.Method is central. The authoritarian, God's-eye stance typical of academic writing is disavowed in favor of an approach that denies that others "should" accept the author's beliefs. Persuasion is tyranny, Joyce Trebilcot thinks, so she tries not to interfere with a reader's processes of creating/discovering her own ideas. This book suggests that lesbian philosophy is like a potluck: wimmin bring their own contributions and also help themselves to the offerings of others.Dyke Ideas is written in a candid, clear, jargon-free style that makes it accessible to a wide range of readers. The writings (which include essays, poetry, a dialogue, and forms without names) resonate with the feelings and thoughts of many wimmin.

This is a groundbreaking work of poetry, autobiography, lesbian studies, multicultural writing, feminist philosophy, and postmodernism. Jeffner Allen achieves a crossing of borders and complex worlds often heralded in feminist theory but rarely attemptedThese abundance writings are intimate chattings that celebrate collisions transitions unexpected that welcome fluidity a breathing that traverse deaths and lives How to love where there may be nothing in common or this today and (not) that tomorrow?

Incorporates memoir in the context of philosophical and political theory and argument.Presenting essays rich with her own personal experiences, philosopher Linda A. Bell examines not only her own life but also problems arising from ways that living affects thinking. She reflects on her own experience in order to challenge a variety of provocative claims, including: that affirmative action harms those it is designed to help; that suicide, while perhaps acceptable for some with fatal diseases, is otherwise a manifestation of mental illness; that women are to blame for male violence toward them if they don't leave the relationships; that a low profile is the best path to success for women in academe; that women are treated fairly in academe, perhaps even better than men; and that "political correctness" is a recent and aberrant move away from respect for freedom of speech. Although drawing from experience as she creates and critiques theory, Bell argues against the view that it is the bedrock of theory.

Looks at Buddhist women's activism for social change from the time of Buddha to the present day.This book on engaged Buddhism focuses on women working for social justice in a wide range of Buddhist traditions and societies. Contributors document attempts to actualize Buddhism's liberating ideals of personal growth and social transformation. Dealing with issues such as human rights, gender-based violence, prostitution, and the role of Buddhist nuns, the work illuminates the possibilities for positive change that are available to those with limited power and resources. Integrating social realities and theoretical perspectives, the work utilizes feminist interpretations of Buddhist values and looks at culturally appropriate means of instigating change.

Looks at Buddhist women's activism for social change from the time of Buddha to the present day.This book on engaged Buddhism focuses on women working for social justice in a wide range of Buddhist traditions and societies. Contributors document attempts to actualize Buddhism's liberating ideals of personal growth and social transformation. Dealing with issues such as human rights, gender-based violence, prostitution, and the role of Buddhist nuns, the work illuminates the possibilities for positive change that are available to those with limited power and resources. Integrating social realities and theoretical perspectives, the work utilizes feminist interpretations of Buddhist values and looks at culturally appropriate means of instigating change.