Academic Writing Group Projects

In Intersectionality, philosopher Naomi Zack presents a novel philosophical account of intersectionality - the process by which people already oppressed, experience more oppression because of their intersecting identities. Examples include women who experience racism or poor people who are under-served. Identifying such intersections allows for more precise analysis of oppression, as well as newly recognized identities, such as blackwomen or homeless people of colour. Zack here explores the meaning of intersectionality through analysis of current events and controversies including the #MeToo movement, the COVID-19 pandemic, and class opportunities for minorities in higher education. Her analysis develops a robust definition of intersectionality in terms of inclusion, recognition, and diversity; works out ontological issues about the relationship between persons, labels, and identity; explores the distinction between abstract philosophical thinking and activism; and discusses how intersectionality can be an effective basis for empowerment, as well as understanding. Zack's distinctively philosophical account explains how intersectionality, considered as a method of analysis, works and can be employed in many areas of progressive thought across varying disciplines. She concludes that identifying and challenging the injustice of oppressions logically requires a broad humanistic framework, that intersectionality cannot be reduced to mere talk of diversity and inclusion, and that intersectionality itself is a progressive method of analysis worthy of philosophical attention.

Revisualising Intersectionality offers transdisciplinary interrogations of the supposed visual evidentiality of categories of human similarity and difference. This open-access book incorporates insights from social and cognitive science as well as psychology and philosophy to explain how we visually perceive physical differences and how cognition is fallible, processual, and dependent on who is looking in a specific context. Revisualising Intersectionality also puts into conversation visual culture studies and artistic research with approaches such as gender, queer, and trans studies as well as postcolonial and decolonial theory to complicate simplified notions of identity politics and cultural representation. The book proposes a revision of intersectionality research to challenge the predominance of categories of visible difference such as race and gender as analytical lenses. 

In Intersectionality, philosopher Naomi Zack presents a novel philosophical account of intersectionality - the process by which people already oppressed, experience more oppression because of their intersecting identities. Examples include women who experience racism or poor people who are under-served. Identifying such intersections allows for more precise analysis of oppression, as well as newly recognized identities, such as blackwomen or homeless people of colour. Zack here explores the meaning of intersectionality through analysis of current events and controversies including the #MeToo movement, the COVID-19 pandemic, and class opportunities for minorities in higher education. Her analysis develops a robust definition of intersectionality in terms of inclusion, recognition, and diversity; works out ontological issues about the relationship between persons, labels, and identity; explores the distinction between abstract philosophical thinking and activism; and discusses how intersectionality can be an effective basis for empowerment, as well as understanding. Zack's distinctively philosophical account explains how intersectionality, considered as a method of analysis, works and can be employed in many areas of progressive thought across varying disciplines. She concludes that identifying and challenging the injustice of oppressions logically requires a broad humanistic framework, that intersectionality cannot be reduced to mere talk of diversity and inclusion, and that intersectionality itself is a progressive method of analysis worthy of philosophical attention.