Hypatia 25th Anniversary Conference: Rationale

This is from the conference proposal submitted to the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities. For additional details, click here.

Conference Organizers

The Hypatia editorial team:
Alison Wylie, Co-editor (Philosophy, University of Washington)
Lori Gruen, Co-editor (Philosophy, Wesleyan University)
Sharyn Clough, Book Review Editor (Philosophy, Oregon State University)

Gwynne Taraska, Managing Editor (Philosophy, University of Washington)
Renée Byrd, Editorial Assistant (Women’s Studies, University of Washington)

University of Washington Editorial Advisors:
Christine DiStefano (Political Science); Sara Goering (Philosophy); Lynn Hankinson Nelson (Philosophy); Nancy Hartsock (Political Science); Carole Lee (Philosophy); Jean Roberts (Philosophy); Ingra Schellenberg (Philosophy); Andrea Woody (Philosophy)

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Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy has been published as an independent journal of feminist philosophy since 1986; Volume 25 will appear in 2010. This is a significant anniversary, and one that falls in the second year of the five-year editorial term during which the Hypatia editorial office will be hosted by the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. The Hypatia Editors and Local Editorial Advisors are organizing a major conference to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the journal next Fall: October 22-24, 2009. A conference at this juncture will showcase the work Hypatia has fostered in feminist philosophy, honoring its founders, editors, and contributors, as well as its intellectual legacies in the field of feminist philosophy. It is also an occasion for charting a course forward, building on the strengths of the journal and envisioning future possibilities for the development of feminist philosophy as it is taking shape across a range of disciplines.

We expect that this conference will bring together a diverse array of scholars engaged with feminist philosophical practice, including more senior scholars who have contributed to Hypatia in innumerable ways over the last 25 years, as well as younger scholars whose work reflects the impact of the multiple traditions of feminist philosophy that have been nurtured by the journal. Local colleagues from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds will find the proposed conference of interest, especially faculty and graduate students from across the College of Arts and Sciences who represent the range of disciplines in which feminist scholarship now thrives. We would hope, as well, to attract feminist graduate students and colleagues from Puget Sound area universities and colleges, as well as feminist scholar/activists in the Seattle region and nationally.

We also anticipate that this conference will be an important source of submissions for an Anniversary Special Issue of Hypatia which the editorial board has approved for the final issue of Volume 25 (Summer 2010; 25.4). While special issue submissions need not originate in the conference, we have scheduled the conference and set the special issue deadline so that conference participants can take advantage of discussion to finalize prospective journal submissions. This special issue is not a proceedings; submissions will go through the full journal review process which, for Hypatia, typically results in a 10-15% acceptance rate. Finally, we expect that this conference will provide a unique opportunity to build the profile of Hypatia Online, the new interactive website we are developing, in collaboration with our publisher Wiley-Blackwell. This website will go live in July 2009 and will have the capacity to host interactive discussion boards, a 25th anniversary “virtual issue,” podcasts, and other conference related digital content.