Books by Andrea J Pitts
SUNY Press, 2021
In a novel approach to the writings of Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004), Andrea J. Pitts addresses ... more In a novel approach to the writings of Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004), Andrea J. Pitts addresses issues relevant to contemporary debates within feminist theory and critical race studies. Pitts explores how Anzaldúa addressed, directly and indirectly, a number of complicated problems regarding agency in her writings, including questions of disability justice, trans theorizing, Indigenous sovereignty, and identarian politics. Anzaldúa’s conception of what Pitts describes as multiplicitous agency serves as a key conceptual link between these questions in her work, including how discussions of agency surfaced in Anzaldúa’s late writings of the 1990s and early 2000s. Not shying away from Anzaldúa’s own complex and sometimes problematic framings of disability, mestizaje, and Indigeneity, Pitts draws from several strands of contemporary Chicanx, Latinx, and African American philosophy to examine how Anzaldúa’s work builds pathways toward networks of solidarity and communities of resistance.
Editorial Work by Andrea J Pitts
Oxford University Press, 2020
"A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives all fuse to create a p... more "A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives all fuse to create a politic born of necessity," writes activist Cherríe L. Moraga. This volume of new essays stages an intergenerational dialogue among philosophers to introduce and deepen engagement with U.S Latinx and Latin American feminist philosophy, and to explore their "theories in the flesh." It explores specific intellectual contributions in various topics in U.S. Latinx and Latin American feminisms that stand alone and are unique and valuable; analyzes critical contributions that U.S. Latinx and Latin American interventions have made in feminist thought more generally over the last several decades; and shows the intellectual and transformative value of reading U.S Latinx and Latin American feminist theorizing.
The collection features a series of essays analyzing decolonial approaches within U. S. Latinx and Latin American feminist philosophy, including studies of the functions of gender within feminist theory, everyday modes of resistance, and methodological questions regarding the scope and breadth of decolonization as a critical praxis. Additionally, essays examine theoretical contributions to feminist discussions of selfhood, narrativity, and genealogy, as well as novel epistemic and hermeneutical approaches within the field. A number of contributors in the book address themes of aesthetics and embodiment, including issues of visual representation, queer desire, and disability within U. S. Latinx and Latin American feminisms.
Together, the essays in this volume are groundbreaking and powerful contributions in the fields of U.S Latinx and Latin American feminist philosophy.
SUNY Press, 2019
Building upon recent interest in Henri Bergson’s social and political philosophy, this volume off... more Building upon recent interest in Henri Bergson’s social and political philosophy, this volume offers a series of fresh and novel perspectives on Bergson’s writings through the lenses of critical philosophy of race and decolonial theory. Contributors place Bergson’s work in conversation with theorists from Africa, the African Diaspora, and Latin America to examine Bergson’s influence on literature, science studies, aesthetics, metaphysics, and social and political philosophy within these geopolitical contexts. The volume pays particular attention to both theoretical and practical forms of critical resistance work, including historical analyses of anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist movements that have engaged with Bergson’s writings—for example, the Négritude movement, the Indigenismo movement, and the Peruvian Socialist Party. These historical and theoretical intersections provide a timely and innovative contribution to the existing scholarship on Bergson, and demonstrate the importance of his thought for contemporary social and political issues.
Special Issue of the Inter-American Journal of Philosophy
Articles by Andrea J Pitts
The Journal of Philosophy of Disability, 2021
In this paper, I examine the writings of African American philosopher Leonard Harris as an author... more In this paper, I examine the writings of African American philosopher Leonard Harris as an author who has been read primarily for his contributions to the study of Africana philosophy, U.S. pragmatism, and moral philosophy. Despite contributions to bioethics and reflections on systemic racism within the context of institutional medical settings, Harris's work has yet to be read in terms of its relevance for disability critique. This paper demonstrates how Harris's writings may be read as contributing to the field of philosophy of disability by arguing that his concept of "necro-being" helps reveal the mutually reinforcing relationships between race, disability, gender, and class. To carry this out, I consider core themes from his work such as metaphilosophy, health, and autonomy to show the relevance of his writings for philosophy of disability, and, in a parallel manner, the importance of disability critique for expanding his accounts of oppression and racism.
The Journal Las Torres de Lucca: International Journal of Political Philosophy , 2021
This paper argues that debates regarding legal protections to preserve the privacy of data subjec... more This paper argues that debates regarding legal protections to preserve the privacy of data subjects, such as those involving the European Union's right to be forgotten, have tended to overlook group-level forms of epistemic asymmetry and their impact on members of historically oppressed groups. In response, I develop what I consider an abolitionist approach to issues of digital justice. I begin by exploring international debates regarding digital privacy and the right to be forgotten. Then, I turn to the long history of informational asymmetries impacting racialized populations in the United States. Such asymmetries, I argue, comprise epistemic injustices that are also implicated within the patterns of racialized incarceration in the United States. The final section brings together questions regarding the impact of such epistemic injustices on incarcerated peoples and focuses specifically on the public availability of criminal histories in online search databases as a fundamental issue within conversations regarding digital justice. I thus conclude by building from the work of contemporary abolitionist writers to argue that the underlying concerns of an individualized right to be forgotten should be transformed into a collective effort to undermine societal carceral imaginaries.
Theory & Event, 2021
Frantz Fanon’s writings on medicine and colonial violence seek to mark the functioning of structu... more Frantz Fanon’s writings on medicine and colonial violence seek to mark the functioning of structural oppression through the provision of health care. Fanon’s medical training and clinical practice in French, Algerian, and Tunisian hospitals, along with his work and support for the Algerian liberation movement, offer an invaluable context and set of resources regarding the functioning of colonial violence, structural racism, and trauma within the practice of clinical medicine. In this essay, I mark several prescient claims that Fanon raised in the 1950s regarding
medical authority and structural oppression that distinguish his work as an important precursor to the radical health care efforts that would emerge decades later in 1970s France, particularly with Le Groupe d’information sur les prisons (GIP) and its sibling organization Le Group information santé (GIS).
APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy, 2021
"The next essay introduces readers to the work of the Mexican philosopher Vera Yamuni Tabush (191... more "The next essay introduces readers to the work of the Mexican philosopher Vera Yamuni Tabush (1917–2003). Author Andrea Pitts describes the theoretical signifcance of Yamuni’s work, and situates it in terms of Yamuni’s perspective as a Lebanese migrant in Mexico. Pitts shows that Yamuni’s critiques of European colonial interests, defense of Palestinian independence, and interest in developing a critical voice among women in the history of philosophy are the basis of her critical interventions in philosophical debates among her contemporaries in the Hyperion Group" (Lori Gallegos, "From the Editor," APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy 20, no. 2: 2021).
Genealogy, 2019
This paper explores the relationship between disability and the aspirational health of the civic ... more This paper explores the relationship between disability and the aspirational health of the civic body through an analysis of the criminalization of immigration and the war on drugs. In particular, this paper utilizes tools from transnational disability studies to examine the formation and maintenance of a form of ablenationalism operating within immigration reform and drug-related policies. Specifically, the militarization of border zones, as well as the vast austerity measures impacting people across North, Central, and South America have shaped notions of public health, safety, and security according to racial, gendered, and settler logics of futurity. The final section of the paper turns to three authors who have been situated in various ways on the margins of the United States, Gloria Anzaldúa (the Mexico-U.S. border), Aurora Levins Morales (Puerto Rico), and Margo Tamez (Lipan Apache). As such, this article analyzes the liberatory, affective, and future-oriented dimensions of disabled life and experience to chart possibilities for resistance to the converging momentum of carceral settler states, transnational healthcare networks, and racial capitalism.
The general aim of this paper is to provide insight into the relevance of critical phenomenology ... more The general aim of this paper is to provide insight into the relevance of critical phenomenology for the study of the patient-provider relationship in health care systems in U.S. jails, prisons, and detention facilities. In particular, I utilize tools from the work of scholars studying phenomenological approaches to health care and structural forms of oppression to analyze several harms that arise from the provision of medical care under the punitive constraints of carceral facilities.
In this article, I examine the relationship between self-knowledge practices among women of color... more In this article, I examine the relationship between self-knowledge practices among women of color and structural patterns of ignorance by offering an analysis of Gloria E. Anzaldúa's discussions of self-writing. I propose that by writing about her own experiences in a manner that hails others to critically interrogate their own identities, Anzaldúa develops important theoretical resources for understanding self-knowledge, self-ignorance, and practices of knowing others. In particular, I claim that in her later writings, Anzaldúa offers a rich epistemological account of these themes through her notion of autohistoria-teoría. The notion of autohistoria-teoría demonstrates that self-knowledge practices, like all knowledge practices, are social and relational. Moreover, such self-knowledge practices require contestation and affirmation as well, including, resistance and productive friction.
Radical Philosophy Review, 2015
Through a study of Fanon’s writings on colonial medicine, this paper focuses on the intersection ... more Through a study of Fanon’s writings on colonial medicine, this paper focuses on the intersection of clinical medicine and mass incarceration. I argue that correctional medicine operates as an extension of colonial medicine via structural white supremacy. To clarify this position, I first draw from the recent literature on mass incarceration to highlight the relationship between carceral punishment in the U.S. and structural white supremacy. In the second section of the paper, I combine my analysis of structural white supremacy and mass incarceration with an analysis of colonial medicine. Here, I focus on Fanon’s writings on medicine and health under conditions of structural oppression to clarify a pattern of violence inflicted upon communities of color and poor communities in the United States, i.e., the communities most affected by mass incarceration.
This paper examines the relationship between the aesthetic frameworks of José Vasconcelos and Glo... more This paper examines the relationship between the aesthetic frameworks of José Vasconcelos and Gloria Anzaldúa. Contemporary readers of Anzaldúa have described her work as developing an “aesthetics of the shadow,” wherein the Aztec conception of Nepantilism—i.e. to be “torn between ways”—provides a potential avenue to transform traditional associations between darkness and evil, and lightness and good. On this reading, Anzaldúa offers a revaluation of darkness and shadows to build strategies for resistance and coalitional politics for communities of color in the U.S. To those familiar with the work of Vasconcelos, Anzaldúa’s aesthetics appears to contrast sharply with his conceptions of aesthetic monism and mestizaje. I propose, however, that if we read both authors as supplementing one another’s work, we can see that their theoretical points of contrast and similarity help frame contemporary philosophical discussions of racial perception.
Book Chapters by Andrea J Pitts
This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in Latina/x feminist philosophy, as w... more This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in Latina/x feminist philosophy, as well as reflection on important contributions and future directions to the field and Themes discussed in the chapter include identity and the self, embodiment, ambivalence, multiplicity, and the relationship between Latin American and US Latinx philosophies. The chapter explains that much of the work among Latina/x feminist scholars strives to analyze the complicated dynamics among communities of color, including coalitional work among Black, Indigenous, Asian, Arab, and Latin American women.
Disability and American Philosophies
Applying Nonideal Theory to Bioethics Living and Dying in a Nonideal World, 2021
Decolonizing American Philosophy, 2020
Latin American and Latinx Philosophy: A Collaborative Introduction, 2019
50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, 2019
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Books by Andrea J Pitts
Editorial Work by Andrea J Pitts
The collection features a series of essays analyzing decolonial approaches within U. S. Latinx and Latin American feminist philosophy, including studies of the functions of gender within feminist theory, everyday modes of resistance, and methodological questions regarding the scope and breadth of decolonization as a critical praxis. Additionally, essays examine theoretical contributions to feminist discussions of selfhood, narrativity, and genealogy, as well as novel epistemic and hermeneutical approaches within the field. A number of contributors in the book address themes of aesthetics and embodiment, including issues of visual representation, queer desire, and disability within U. S. Latinx and Latin American feminisms.
Together, the essays in this volume are groundbreaking and powerful contributions in the fields of U.S Latinx and Latin American feminist philosophy.
Articles by Andrea J Pitts
medical authority and structural oppression that distinguish his work as an important precursor to the radical health care efforts that would emerge decades later in 1970s France, particularly with Le Groupe d’information sur les prisons (GIP) and its sibling organization Le Group information santé (GIS).
Book Chapters by Andrea J Pitts
The collection features a series of essays analyzing decolonial approaches within U. S. Latinx and Latin American feminist philosophy, including studies of the functions of gender within feminist theory, everyday modes of resistance, and methodological questions regarding the scope and breadth of decolonization as a critical praxis. Additionally, essays examine theoretical contributions to feminist discussions of selfhood, narrativity, and genealogy, as well as novel epistemic and hermeneutical approaches within the field. A number of contributors in the book address themes of aesthetics and embodiment, including issues of visual representation, queer desire, and disability within U. S. Latinx and Latin American feminisms.
Together, the essays in this volume are groundbreaking and powerful contributions in the fields of U.S Latinx and Latin American feminist philosophy.
medical authority and structural oppression that distinguish his work as an important precursor to the radical health care efforts that would emerge decades later in 1970s France, particularly with Le Groupe d’information sur les prisons (GIP) and its sibling organization Le Group information santé (GIS).
example of an antirepresentationalist and nonobjectivist description of
truth that may help explain the terms and stakes of neointerventionist
policies. My claim, however, will be, following the critical insights of
Cornel West, Chantal Mouffe, and Sylvia Wynter, that neopragmatist
efforts of the sort outlined by Rorty, while sophisticated in their analyses
of the nature of truth and forms of justification, fail to thoroughly engage
the political conception of “the human” that orders and frames debates
regarding objectivity and solidarity. I conclude by returning to the problematic of neointerventionism from Wynter’s framings of what she calls the “coloniality of truth” and “embattled humanisms.”
knowledge unfairly deprives an individual of an ability
to make sense of her/his own experiences. Cases of
hermeneutical injustice often involve forms of implicit
bias and meta-ignorance that support the shared gaps of
a social group’s interpretive resources. To elucidate the
harms caused by such forms of bias and meta-ignorance, I
suggest that we turn to a concrete example, in this case, the
context of correctional health care. In this paper, I argue that
prisoners may face hermeneutical injustices with respect
to their medical care. One of the primary reasons for this
is that the current legal evidentiary requirements needed
to prove civil rights violations with respect to medical care
in prisons set unobtainable standards for many prisoners.
The inaccessibility of those standards, I propose, is due
to a series of hermeneutical gaps among the epistemic
resources available to prisoners.
Philosophy,” Andrea Pitts gives an account of how Schutte’s
conceptual framework provides important hermeneutical tools that can be used as “strategies to destabilize and decenter the hegemonic speaking positions of U.S. philosophical discourse” by imparting a critical dimension to the development of genealogies in the History of Latin American philosophy. Using two of Schutte’s essays, “Postmodernity and Utopia” and “Cultural Alterity,” Pitts applies the notion of cross-cultural incommensurability to analyses of nineteenth-century narratives of emancipation (such as those found in the works of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento) to argue in favor of a more open, “polyphonic register through which we can make sense of [the] varied dimensions within Latin American thought.”