Making the Case: Feminist and Critical Race Theorists Investigate Case Studies

Editors:  Heidi Grasswick and Nancy McHugh

Volume to be published with SUNY Press

Over the past twenty-five years feminist and critical race theorists working in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine have often employed case studies and extended case examples to make arguments about the efficacy of particular epistemic approaches, to illustrate such epistemic phenomena as the construction of ignorance and the gendered and racialized structure of the sciences and medicine, and to take up issues of epistemic justice and epistemic democracy. Yet in spite of the growing body of literature in this area, there has not yet been a volume that

1. provides critical assessments of the effectiveness of case-study approaches for feminist and critical race theorists or
2. provides examples of the pluralism of the approaches in this area. This volume seeks to offer a collection of new work in case study analysis informed by philosophers working in feminist and critical race theory.

We invite initial abstract submissions of 500-750 words that address the use of case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, particularly as their use pertains to the goals of feminist and critical race theorists.

Submissions may focus on theoretical and methodological issues concerning case studies and/or engage particular case studies directly, focusing on the development of new and significant case studies that further understandings of social justice issues that are of interest to feminists and critical race theorists.  Among the questions that could be considered are:

• What kind of conclusions can adequately be drawn from case studies?
• Are there epistemic dangers of working with case studies?
• Is case-study analysis especially useful for illustrating the dynamics of social injustice and if so, why?
• What pressing social justice issues might be most adequately addressed through particular case-study analyses?
• How has the historical use of case studies developed feminist and critical race theorists’ understanding of knowledge production?
• What are some of the different ways in which case-study analysis has been developed and can be developed by feminist and critical race theorists?
• How do case-study approaches help to recognize the epistemic resources are generated by marginalized communities?
• Can new case-study analyses demonstrate an even broader array of epistemic benefits of case-engaged methodology than what has been illustrated thus far?

We welcome work from feminist and critical race theorists that develops new case studies in epistemology and philosophy of science and medicine, as well as more theoretical approaches that critically reflect upon the process of using cases.

Submissions should be emailed to grasswic@middlebury.edu
Initial abstracts of 500-750 words due: August 1, 2015
Acceptance notification: Early September 2015
Full papers of 6500-8000 words due: January 31, 2016

For questions, please contact:

Nancy Arden McHugh
Professor of Philosophy
Wittenberg University
Springfield, OH 45501
nmchugh@wittenberg.edu

or

Heidi Grasswick
Professor of Philosophy
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753
grasswic@middlebury.edu