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A crossdisciplinary exploration of essentialism about kinds: philosophical perspectives in feminism and the philosophy of biology
DownloadFall 2011
“Essentialism about kinds” is the belief that there are necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in a kind. This thesis addresses the parallels in the discussions of essentialism across feminism and the philosophy of biology. Specifically, I address the similarities and differences...
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From Intersex to Disorders of Sex Development: A Foucauldian Analysis of the Science, Ethics and Politics of the Medical Production of Cisgendered Lives
DownloadSpring 2016
This dissertation takes up the revised treatment model for intersex conditions introduced in 2006, which controversially reclassified them as Disorders of Sex Development (DSDs). It provides a critical Foucauldian analysis of the science, ethics, and politics underwriting medical efforts that aim...
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Spring 2015
Feminist resistance to gender oppression, while surely a collective political project, has an important individual dimension. Individual resistance most often takes the shape of self-transformation where one works on the self to change desires, attitudes, and practices. I argue that paradigms of...
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Fall 2014
Since the 1980s, many feminist philosophers have pointed out the association of masculinity and maleness with reason and rationality, and femininity and femaleness with unreason and irrationality. Struck by how these associations influence even ordinary activities and discourse, I sought a...
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Fall 2012
Motivated by the apparent ineffectiveness of feminist critiques to ameliorate my negative experiences of my body, this thesis investigates Michel Foucault’s understanding of experience and critique in an effort to explain this inefficacy. Caught between intuitions that my “stubborn” experiences...