Scholarship

Ladelle McWhorter

James Thomas Professor in Philosophy
Professor of Environmental Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies
Department of Philosophy

28 Westhampton Way
University of Richmond, VA 23173

Scholarship is an extremely important part of the work of any good teacher. Much of my scholarly work is published in the form of articles and chapters in books and concerns the work of four philosophers: Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Martin Heidegger. Below are lists of some of my work on each one.

My first published monograph is Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization. This book was issued by Indiana University Press in 1999 and is still in print. Visit Project Muse for the texts from a symposium on the book held in 2001 at Penn Station University. There is also a review by Julien Murphy in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

My second monograph, Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America: A Genealogy (2009) is available from Indiana University Press. You can listen to a pod cast about the book on the UR library web site. You can also read reviews of this book and my response in an online symposium.

Gail Stenstad and I have recently edited a new, updated and much expanded version of a collection of essays I edited in 1992, Heidegger and the Earth: Essays in  Environmental Philosophy. It is now available from the University of Toronto Press.

Four articles grew out of my work on Racism over the past few years:

1. "Darwin's Invisible Hand: Feminism, Reprogenetics, and Foucault's Analysis of Neoliberalism," Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 48 (September, 2010): 43-63.

2. "Racism and Biopower" in On Race and Racism in America: C onfessions in Philosophy, edited by Roy Martinez for Penn State University Press, 2010.

3. "Racism and Responsibility" in Difficulties of the Ethical Life, edited by Shannon Sullivan and Dennis Schmidt for Fordham University Press, 2008.

4. "Foucault's Analysis of Racism: Biopolitics, Abnormality, and Eugenics" in Biopolitics and Racism: Foucauldian Genealogies, edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jeffrey Paris for SUNY Press, forthcoming.

Somewhat older publications are listed below.

Georges Bataille (1897-1962):

• "The Private Life of Birds," in Bataille Now, ed. Shannon Winnubst (Indiana, 2007), 141-66.
• "Bataille's Erotic Displacement of Vision: A Feminist Reading," in Philosophies of the Visible, ed. Wilhelm
  Wurzer (London: Continuum Press, 2002), 117-27.
• "The Significance of Bataille's Silence: Transgression in the Absence of the Sacred," in Semiotics 1992, ed. John Deely (UPA, 1993): 74-80.
• "Is There Sexual Difference in the Work of Georges Bataille?" in International Studies in Philosophy, Vol. XXVII/I (1995): 33-41.
• "Bataille's Erotic Displacement of Vision: Attempts at a Feminist Reading" in Panorama: Philosophies of the Visible, edited by Wilhelm Wurzer (London: Continuum Press, 2002): 117-27.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986):

• Simone de Beauvoir, an audio play for eleven voices produced by and available from Knowledge Products, Inc., as part of their "World of Philosophy" series narrated by Lynn Redgrave. CDs can also be purchased on the Web from a variety of sources.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984):

• "Where Do White People Come From? A Foucaultian Critique of Whiteness Studies" in Philosophy and
  Social Criticism, vol. 31, nos. 5-6 (2005): 533-56
• "My Body/My Self: Foucault and Ecofeminism" in Philosophy Today, vol. 49 (SPEP Supp, 2005; actually
  appearing spring 2006): 110-15.
• "Sex, Race, and Biopower: A Foucauldian Genealogy" in Hypatia, vol. 19, no. 3 (Summer, 2004): 38-62.
• "Foucault's Political Spirituality" in Philosophy Today, (Spring, 2004): 79-85.
• "Practicing Practicing," in Feminism and the Final Foucault, eds. Karen Vintages and Dianna Taylor
  (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 143-62.
• "Rites of Passing: Foucault, Power, and Same-Sex Commitment Ceremonies" in Thinking Through Rituals:
  Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Kevin Schilbrack (New York: Routledge, 2004): 71-96.
• "Revenge of the Gay Nihilist," in Hypatia, vol. 16, no. 3 (Summer, 2001): 115-25.
• "Pleasure and Truth," in International Studies in Philosophy, vol. XXXIII, no. 1 (winter, 2001): 33-42.
• "Beyond Pluralism: Foucault's Strategic Counter to Heterosexist Categories" in Rethinking the Political, ed. Lenore Langsdorf (SUNY Press, 1998).
• "Michel Foucault" in Blackwell's Companion to the Philosophers (Basel Blackwell), forthcoming 1999.
• "Foucault's Genealogy of Homosexuality" in Bulletin de la Societe Americaine de Philosophie de Langue Francaise, Vol. VI, No. 1-2 (Spring, 1994): 44-58.
• "The Event of Truth: Foucault's Response to Structuralism" in Philosophy Today (Summer, 1994): 159-66.
• "Scientific Discipline and the Origins of Race: A Foucaultian Reading of the History of Biology" in Continental and Postmodern Perspectives in the Philosophy of Science, eds. B. Babich, D. Bergoffen, S. Glynn (Avebury Press, 1995): 173-88.
• "Natural Bodies/Unnatural Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Corporeal Intensification" in Symploke, Vol. 3, no. 2 (Summer, 1995): 201-10.
• "Foucault's Attack on Sex-Desire" in Philosophy Today, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Spring, 1997): 160-65.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976):

• "Subjecting Dasein," in Foucault and Heidegger: Critical Encounters, ed. Alan Milchman and Alan Rosenberg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 110-26.
• Heidegger and the Earth: Essays in Environmental Philosophy, an edited volume published by The Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1992, and translated into Japanese in 1995.