Professor Moira Gatens

Room S443, Main Quad A14
Ph +612 9351 2468
Fax +612 9351 3918

Biographical Information

Social and political philosophy, ethics, 17th century philosophy (especially Spinoza), feminist theory.

Research Grants, Fellowships and Awards

Professor Gatens became a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1999. She has held several ARC grants; most recently she was awarded an Australian Professorial Fellowship (2006-2010).

In May-June 2003 Professor Gatens was the STICERD Distinguished Visiting Professor at the LSE, UK. In Semester 1, 2005 she was Scots Philosophical Society Centenary Fellow (March) and the Erskine Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Christchurch, New Zealand (May). In 2007-08 she was Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. In 2010 she will hold the Spinoza Chair at the University of Amsterdam.

Publications (Books and Book Chapters)

Books

2009 (ed.) Feminist Interpretations of Benedict Spinoza, Pennsylvania, Penn State Press

2001 Feminism si Filosofie: Perspective asupra diferentei si egalitatii, trans. Olivia Rusu-Toderean, Bucuresti, Polirom, pp. 232 [trans. Feminism and Philosophy, 1991]

1999 Collective Imaginings: Spinoza, Past and Present, London and New York: Routledge, 1999 [with G. Lloyd]

1996 Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality, London and New York: Routledge, 1996

1991 Feminism and Philosophy: Perspectives on Difference and Equality, Cambridge: Polity Press & Indiana University Press, 1991 (reprinted: 1993, 1995)

Book Chapters

2009 'Through Spinoza's Looking Glass', Feminist Interpretations of Benedict Spinoza, ed. M. Gatens, Pennsylvania, Penn State Press

2009 'The Politics of the Imagination', Feminist Interpretations of Benedict Spinoza, ed. M. Gatens, Pennsylvania, Penn State Press

2008 'Paradoxes of Liberal Politics: Contracts, Rights, and Consent', in The Illusion of Consent: Engaging with Carole Pateman, eds D. O'Neill, M.L. Shanley and I.M. Young, Pennsylvania, Penn State Press, pp. 31-48

2008 'Conflicting Imaginaries in Australian Multiculturalism: Women's Rights, Group Rights and Aboriginal Customary Law', in Political Theory and Australian Multiculturalism, ed. Geoffrey Braham Levey, NY, Berghahn Books, pp. 151-170

2006 'Politicizing the Body: Property, Contract and Rights', in The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, eds J. Dryzek, B. Honig and A. Phillips, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 677-93

2004 *‘Privacy and the Body: The Publicity of Affect’ in Privacies: Philosophical Evaluations, ed. B Roessler, Stanford University Press, pp. 113-32

2003 *‘Beauvoir and Biology: A Second Look’ in C. Card, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 266-85

‘Epilogue’ to Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality [1996] reprinted in The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, ed. A. Jones London, Routledge, pp. 466-70

2002 'Post-Colonialism and History: Are We Responsible for the Past?' in J. Swearingen, J. Cutting-Gray, eds., Extreme Beauty: Aesthetics, Politics, Death, New York, London, Continuum, pp. 142-151

*‘The Politics of “Presence” and “Difference”: Working Through Spinoza and Eliot’, in Visible Women: Essays on Feminist Legal Theory and Political Philosophy, eds. S. James and S. Palmer, Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp. 159-174

Publications (Journal Articles)

2008 'Gender and Genre: Marian Evans, George Henry Lewes and "George Eliot"', Re-coupling Gender and Genre, special issue Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 33-44

2008 'Re-coupling Gender and Genre' editor's introduction to special issue Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 1-3

2007 'George Eliot's "incarnation of the Divine" in Romola and Benedict Spinoza's "Blessedness": A Double Reading', in George Eliot - George Henry Lewes Studies, Vol. 52-53 September-October, pp. 86-102

2007 'The "Disciplined Imagination": Literature as Experimental Philosophy' in Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 22, No. 52, pp. 25-34

2004 *‘Can Human Rights Accommodate Women’s Rights? Towards an Embodied Account of Social Norms, Social Meaning, and Cultural Change’, Contemporary Political Theory, Vol 3, pp. 275-99

‘Twenty years since “A Critique of the sex/gender Distinction”: a conversation with Moira Gatens’ [with Mary Walsh], Australian Feminist Studies, Vol 19, No 44, pp. 213-24

2003 *‘Imagination, Power and Freedom’, Arts: Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, Vol 23, pp. 9-25

*‘Freedom and Determinism in Middlemarch, or Dorothea the Lunatic’, Sydney Studies in English, Vol 29, pp. 31-38

2002 ‘If Mutual Obligation is the Answer, What is the Question?’ in Australian Journal of Social Issues, Vol 37, No 3, pp. 225-245, (with D. Mitchell and V. Braithwaite)

Conferences

Professor Gatens regularly presents research papers at international professional conferences, including: the American Political Science Association, the American Philosophical Association, and the International Association for Philosophy and Literature.

She has been an invited keynote speaker on many occasions, including: the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin; the Spinoza Society of Netherlands, Erasmus University; The University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis; 15th Annual Spindel Conference, Memphis; and the Offenes Kulturhaus, Austria.