My fellow BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY blogger, Mich Ciurria, often uses the term cry-baby to refer to the privileged nondisabled white men who populate philosophy in the US and complain about the (flailing) democratization of the profession there. Yet Canada has its own share of cry-babies in philosophy, in academia more broadly, and elsewhere, as a survey […]
How Canadian Philosophy Plays a Vital Role in the Project of Eugenics: Or, Gender, Schafer, and Other Nondisabled White Male Bioethicists
The annual in-person meeting of the Canadian Philosophical Association (CPA) begins at Dalhousie University tomorrow. Given that Dalhousie has played, and continues to play, a formative role in the development of bioethical and legal arguments that promote MAiD, eugenics will be “in the air” once again at the CPA meeting, not least because two of […]
Quote of the Week (and It’s Only Thursday): Hypatia’s Ableist Legacy, co-authored with Nora Berenstain
This week’s quote-of-the-week post (though it’s only Thursday) addresses the historical legacy of ableism at Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. To open our discussion in the post, consider an excerpt from Shelley’s introduction to The Bloomsbury Guide to Philosophy of Disability. The introduction, which is entitled “Situating Philosophy of Disability in/out of Philosophy,” offers a summary […]
A Working-Class Philosopher is Something to Be
The essay below appeared on the First-Generation Philosophers platform today. I enjoyed it so much that I reprinted it here. ********************************************************************************* A WORKING-CLASS PHILOSOPHER IS SOMETHING TO BE by Stephen Mumford Where I grew up, philosophy was not a career option. The area was mainly for farming and coal mining. Becoming an academic made me […]
FINALLY: Feminist Philosophy of Disability in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Disability Studies
The final version of my article “Feminist Philosophy of Disability” has now been published online in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Disability Studies. I have copied the abstract for the article below. You can read/listen to the article here: Feminist Philosophy of Disability | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Disability Studies | Oxford Academic This article […]
Bioethics as Eugenic Mechanism: A Précis
Below I have copied the text of a presentation that I am giving (via Zoom) to “The Body in Extremis: Fascism, Health, and the Auto-Immune State” Workshop (U of Illinois-Urbana Champaign) today. In this context, I want to send out the presentation to the tenured liberal Canadian philosophers who—apparently uninformed about ableism and the apparatus […]
Proposal for Oxford Handbook of Feminist Philosophy of Disability
As I noted in last week’s anniversary installment of Dialogues on Disability, Katie Staal, Senior Acquisitions Editor at Oxford University Press, recently encouraged me to submit a proposal for a handbook on feminist philosophy of disability. I submitted the proposal, about which Katie was very enthusiastic and has sent out for review, earlier today. It […]
Dialogues on Disability: Shelley Tremain With Élaina Gauthier-Mamaril and Emily R. Douglas
Hello, I am Shelley Tremain and I would like to welcome you to the eleventh-anniversary installment of Dialogues on Disability, the series of interviews that I am conducting with disabled philosophers and post to BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY on the third Wednesday of each month. The series is designed to provide a public venue for discussion with disabled philosophers about […]
Philosophy and Theory of Disability in The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Disability Studies!
On April 9, The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Disability Studies (ORE) — a mammoth project whose contents will appear online on a rolling basis — was launched! As readers/listeners of BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY may recall, I edited/curated the Philosophy and Theory of Disability Area of the ORE (go here). Yesterday, several authors who wrote for the […]
Dialogues on Disability on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, at 8 am ET
“I have read almost all of your interviews and they are always wonderful. … I am really looking forward to the next installment of Dialogues on Disability.” — Adrian Piper “… a major contribution to our understanding of the field and the people in it.” — Vanessa Wills “I’ve learned so much about ableism in philosophy […]
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