Sandra Bartky

Biographical Information

Sandra Bartky is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She holds the BA, MA and PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and has studied at Rheinische-Friedrich Wilhelms Universitat in Bonn, Germany, the University of Munich in Germany, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1997 Bartky received an honorary degree, Doctor of Humanities, from New England College.

Summary of Major Themes

Sandra Lee Bartky is interested in doing phenomenology in a way that is historically and socially situated; she has made contributions to this especially in regard to cultural ideals of feminine embodiment in "advanced" industrial societies. As part of a general philosophical critique of "femininity," she has also tried to apply certain poststructuralist insights to the problem of "feminine" embodiment, especially Foucault's claim that certain disciplinary procedures importantly structure subjectivity in modern societies. Bartky approaches feminist philosophy without a fixed methodology and so has used phenomenology, existentialism, poststructuralism and Marxism to try to tease philosophical insights out of the feminine condition as some of us live it. Lately, she has begun to problematize race and especially "whiteness" as essential to any halfway adequate feminist philosophical work. Also, Bartky believes that "class" is largely ignored in very contemporary feminist theory though this was not the case earlier in the Second Wave. For this reason, she finds certain strands of Marxism and Critical Theory essential as well.

A good deal of what Bartky has written might be called "feminist moral psychology." She has essays on the moral and epistemic consequences of female deference in caregiving to men, on the kinds of access to the experience of the Other that are possible and desirable, on certain experiences of aging and on shame and guilt. Bartky's essay collection, Femininity and Domination, (Routledge, 1990) contains some of this material, some is more recent.

Bibliography

BOOKS

Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. Routledge, 1990.

EDITED BOOKS

Revaluing French Feminism: Essays on Difference, Agency and Culture. (co-edited with Nancy Fraser) Indiana Univ. Press, 1992.

ARTICLES

[Note: Many of Bartky's articles have been reprinted in other sources. If you cannot find the citations listed below, please contact the website editor for alternate publications.]

"Body Politics," in Companion to Feminist Philosophy. Ed. Iris Young and Alison Jagger. (Basil Blackwell, forthcoming).

"Sympathy and Solidarity: On a Tightrope with Scheler," in Feminists Rethink the Self. Ed. Diana Meyers. (Westview Press, 1997).

"The Pedagogy of Shame," in Feminisms and Pedagogies of Everyday Life. Ed. Carmen Luke. (Routledge, 1996).

"Feeding Egos and Tending Wounds: Deference and Disaffection in Women's Emotional Labor," in Power, Dignity and Social Structure: Readings in Multicultural Social Theory. Ed. mary Rogers. (McGraw Hill, 1995).

"Agency: What's the Problem?" in Provoking Agents: Theorizing Gender and Agency. Ed. Judith Kegan Gardiner. (Univ. of Illinois Press, 1995).

"A Reply to Commentators." Hypatia 8 (Wint 1993): 192-196.

"Hypatia Unbound: A Confession." Feminism and Psychology 2 (Oct 1992): 426-429.

"Women, Philosophy and the Body." APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 89 (Fall 1989): 78-81.

"Philosophy and More Practical Pursuits: Philosophers and the Women's Movement." International Journal of Applied Philosophy (Spr 1989).

"Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power," in Feminism and Foucault: Paths of Resistance. Ed. lee Quinby and Irene Diamond. (Northeastern Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 61-86.

"Feminine Masochism and the Politics of personal Transformation." Hypatia No. 2 (special issue of Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 7, No. 5): 323-334.

"Narcissism, Femininity and Alienation." Social Theory and Practice 8 (Sum 1982): 127-143.

"Heidegger and the Modes of World Disclosure." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XL (Dec. 1979): 212-237.

"On Psychological Oppression," in Philosophy and Women. Ed. Weinzweig and Hill (Wadsworth, 1979), pp. 33-41.

"Toward a Phenomenology of Feminist Consciousness." Social Theory and Practice 3 (1976): 425-439.

"Originative Thought in the Later Philosophy of Heidegger." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30 (mar 1970): 368-381.

"Heidegger's Philosophy of Art." British Journal of Aesthetics 9 (Oct. 1969): 353-371.

"Seinsverlassenheit in the Later Philosophy of Heidegger." Inquiry 10 ( ): 74-88.

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