Moira Gatens
Biographic Data
| ID | 500679 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Moira Gatens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Moira |
| FAMILY NAME | Gatens |
| SIGNATURE | GATENS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9952-4813 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
On Deleuze’s Hidden Emissions: Loving Spinoza
Is there a gendered difference in the way that philosophers approach the work of ‘the Greats’ in the history of philosophy? Some reflections of Deleuze and Le Dœuff on this topic might incline one towards an affirmative response. This brief skit presents some robust interpretive options to the question posed
For the Love of God: Imagining Otherwise with Spinoza
This paper argues that our present conceptual resources are inadequate to the task of understanding and intervening into the ecological, political, and economic crises confronting us today. Enabling, inclusive, and effective social imaginaries, that conceive of all beings as part of and dependent on nature, can and should be promoted. Spinoza’s philosophy of the imagination, embodiment, and affect is shown to be apposite to this endeavor. Further…
Spinoza: Thoughts on Hope in Our Political Present
Singularity, similarity, and exemplarity in Spinoza’s philosophy
In the Preface to Part Four of the Ethics, Spinoza offers the reader an exemplar of human nature. However, Spinoza does not conceive of human nature as a universal in which each human being participates, simply by virtue of being human. Rather, each human being is conceived as singular. Thriving individual lives assume thriving communities composed of (somewhat) like-minded and (somewhat) like-embodied individuals. The model, or exemplar, then, m…
Editors’ preface to special issue of Intellectual History Review on Spinoza and Art
Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677) is often characterised in the history of philosophy as the rationalist philosopher par excellence. However, much contemporary critical interpretation of his thought has
Spinoza on art and the cultivation of a disposition toward joyful living
This paper forms part of a larger project which seeks to derive a theory of art from a close reading of Spinoza's work. It focuses on the importance of the aligned terms of ingenium and dispositio, which are both used to discuss the central importance of “dispostion” to our capacity to live well. While it is not possible to avoid affects, it is possible to order them in such a way that their negative impacts are lessened and their positive impact…
Frankenstein, Spinoza, and exemplarity
This paper reads Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, through the lens of three themes in Spinoza’s philosophy. First, the bondage of the passions; second, the importance of the imitation of affects as grounding sociability; and, finally, the problematic relationship between human normative life and the rest of nature, posed by Spinoza’s immanent ontology. Like Spinoza’s exemplars in the Ethics and in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Shelley’s …
Institutional Transformations: Imagination, Embodiment, and Affect
The idea that social and political institutions can be designed in order to achieve specific human ends goes back, at least, to Plato’s presentation of the appropriate form of the just city-state i
Reframing Honour in Heterosexual Imaginaries
This paper explores the relationship between honour and recognition in the context of normative heterosexuality, and the implications of this relationship for sustaining and transforming problematic sexual norms. Building on recent attempts to move beyond a narrow and restrictive focus on consent as a means of thinking through the ethics of heterosexual sex, we reflect critically on the concept of honour in this domain. Honour, in our approach, i…
Let’s Talk Story: Gender and the Narrative Self
Through a critical reading of Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel, Woman Warrior, this paper addresses Amy Allen’s criticism that Seyla Benhabib’s conception of narrative agency involves the idea of a gender-neutral core self. Allen’s criticism of Benhabib is found wanting and the notion of an ungendered self is judged incoherent. Rather, gender is one of a number of markers at work in the open-ended narrative construction of identity
Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality
Moira Gatens investigates the ways in which differently sexed bodies can occupy the same social or political space. Representations of sexual difference have unacknowledged philosophical roots which cannot be dismissed as a superficial bias on the part of the philosopher, nor removed without destroying the coherence of the philosophical system concerned. The deep structural bias against women extends beyond metaphysics and its effects are felt in…
Cloud-Borne Angels, Prophets and the Old Woman’s Flower-Pot: Reading George Eliot’s Realism alongside Spinoza’s ‘beings of the imagination’
Why does Eliot set up a contrast between 'cloud-borne angels' and 'old women' going about their domestic tasks? And why would the exclusion of ordinary folk from 'the region of Art' risk limiting the scope and fitness of 'our religion and philosophy'? And what has all this to do with her allusions to the 'ideal' and 'the real'? This paper posits a reading of Eliot's realist approach as a self-conscious narrative strategy that draws on elements of…
Revisiting the Continental Shelf: Moira Gatens on Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Eliot, Feuerbach, and Spinoza
Illusion of Consent: Engaging with Carole Pateman
Re-Coupling Gender and Genre
Over thirty years ago Michele Le Dœuff coined the phrase “the Heloise complex” to refer to a certain kind of erotico-theoretical transference between a philosopher and his disciple or student.1 Alt
"Marian Evans, George Henry Lewes and "George Eliot
The idea that it might be possible to explore “gender” and “genre” as conceptually coupled through the study of intellectual couplings from different historical periods is the kernel from which thi
The 'Disciplined Imagination: Literature as ‘Experimental’ Philosophy
Can Human Rights Accommodate Women's Rights? Towards an Embodied Account of Social Norms, Social Meaning, and Cultural Change
If Mutual Obligation Is the Answer, What Is the Question
Gender and Institutions: Welfare, Work and Citizenship
1. Institutions, embodiment and sexual difference Moira Gatens Part I. Beyond the Male Breadwinner: Welfare, Housing and Household Labour: 2. Life-course and labour market transitions: an alternative model for welfare state design Deborah Mitchell 3. Reshaping housing policy and the benefits of urban/regional location: why gender matters Bettina Cass 4. Moving toward equality? Questions of change and equality in household work patterns Janeen Bax…
Feminism as ?Password: Re-thinking the ?Possible? with Spinoza and Deleuze
The Power of Spinoza: Feminist Conjunctions
As a constructive alternative to the exclusionary binaries of Cartesian philosophy, Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens turn to Spinoza. Spinoza's understanding of the body as in relation takes the focus of philosophical thought from the homo-geneous subject to the heterogeneity of the social, and the focus of politics from individual rights to collective responsibility. The implications for feminism are radical; Spinoza enables a reconceptualizatio…
The Power of Spinoza: Feminist Conjunctions: Susan James Interviews
As a constructive alternative to the exclusionary binaries of Cartesian philosophy, Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens turn to Spinoza. Spinoza's understanding of the body as “in relation” takes the focus of philosophical thought from the homogeneous subject to the heterogeneity of the social, and the focus of politics from individual rights to collective responsibility. The implications for feminism are radical; Spinoza enables a reconceptualizati…
Feminism as “Password”: Re-thinking the “Possible” with Spinoza and Deleuze
This paper reads Deleuze through a Spinozist lens to conceive of the human being as a dynamic and complex whole in constant interchange with its environment. The author thus moves beyond philosophical dualisms, and challenges the assumption that a hierarchical normative organization is the only possible world. Using the example of rape, she argues that micropolitical strategies might disrupt and “pass” the juridical order and open up alternative,…
Collective Imaginings: Spinoza, Past and Present
Can Human Rights Accommodate Women's Rights? Towards an Embodied Account of Social Norms, Social Meaning, and Cultural Change
Woman and her double(s): Sex, gender and ethics
1989). Woman and her double(s): Sex, gender and ethics. Australian Feminist Studies: Vol. 4, No. 10, pp. 33-47
The Power of Spinoza: Feminist Conjunctions
As a constructive alternative to the exclusionary binaries of Cartesian philosophy, Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens turn to Spinoza. Spinoza's understanding of the body as in relation takes the focus of philosophical thought from the homo-geneous subject to the heterogeneity of the social, and the focus of politics from individual rights to collective responsibility. The implications for feminism are radical; Spinoza enables a reconceptualizatio…
Spinoza: Thoughts on Hope in Our Political Present
Reframing Honour in Heterosexual Imaginaries
This paper explores the relationship between honour and recognition in the context of normative heterosexuality, and the implications of this relationship for sustaining and transforming problematic sexual norms. Building on recent attempts to move beyond a narrow and restrictive focus on consent as a means of thinking through the ethics of heterosexual sex, we reflect critically on the concept of honour in this domain. Honour, in our approach, i…
Institutional Transformations: Imagination, Embodiment, and Affect
The idea that social and political institutions can be designed in order to achieve specific human ends goes back, at least, to Plato’s presentation of the appropriate form of the just city-state i
Feminism as “Password”: Re-thinking the “Possible” with Spinoza and Deleuze
This paper reads Deleuze through a Spinozist lens to conceive of the human being as a dynamic and complex whole in constant interchange with its environment. The author thus moves beyond philosophical dualisms, and challenges the assumption that a hierarchical normative organization is the only possible world. Using the example of rape, she argues that micropolitical strategies might disrupt and “pass” the juridical order and open up alternative,…
The 'Disciplined Imagination: Literature as ‘Experimental’ Philosophy
If Mutual Obligation Is the Answer, What Is the Question
Frankenstein, Spinoza, and exemplarity
This paper reads Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, through the lens of three themes in Spinoza’s philosophy. First, the bondage of the passions; second, the importance of the imitation of affects as grounding sociability; and, finally, the problematic relationship between human normative life and the rest of nature, posed by Spinoza’s immanent ontology. Like Spinoza’s exemplars in the Ethics and in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Shelley’s …
Let’s Talk Story: Gender and the Narrative Self
Through a critical reading of Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel, Woman Warrior, this paper addresses Amy Allen’s criticism that Seyla Benhabib’s conception of narrative agency involves the idea of a gender-neutral core self. Allen’s criticism of Benhabib is found wanting and the notion of an ungendered self is judged incoherent. Rather, gender is one of a number of markers at work in the open-ended narrative construction of identity
Revisiting the Continental Shelf: Moira Gatens on Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Eliot, Feuerbach, and Spinoza
Feminism as ?Password: Re-thinking the ?Possible? with Spinoza and Deleuze
The Power of Spinoza: Feminist Conjunctions: Susan James Interviews
As a constructive alternative to the exclusionary binaries of Cartesian philosophy, Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens turn to Spinoza. Spinoza's understanding of the body as “in relation” takes the focus of philosophical thought from the homogeneous subject to the heterogeneity of the social, and the focus of politics from individual rights to collective responsibility. The implications for feminism are radical; Spinoza enables a reconceptualizati…
Sex, Contract and Genealogy
Woman and her double(s): Sex, gender and ethics
1989). Woman and her double(s): Sex, gender and ethics. Australian Feminist Studies: Vol. 4, No. 10, pp. 33-47
Feminism and Philosophy: Perspectives on Difference and Equality
Recent Work in Feminist Philosophy
Recent Work in Feminist Philosophy Get access Feminism and Philosophy. By Moira Gatens. (Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press, 1991. Pp. 158. Price £35.00 h/b, £9.95 p/b.)Feminism and Philosophy. By Moira Gatens. (Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press, 1991. Pp. 158. Price £35.00 h/b, £9.95 p/b.)What Can She Know? By Lorraine Code. (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1991. Pp. xiv + 349. Price $42.50 h/b, $14.95 p/b.)Feminist Ethics. Edited by Claudia Car…
Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality
"Imaginary Bodies is a collection of essays that offer a sustained challenge to traditional philosophical notions of the body, sex and gender. Moira Gatens explores alternative positions to dualism by exploring psychoanalytic, Foucaultian and Spinozist notions of embodiment. The book traces a largely neglected geneaology of philosophers from Spinoza, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Deleuze and sets this tradition against that of the Enlightenment.…
Sex, Contract and Genealogy
Collective Imaginings: Spinoza, Past and Present
Feminism as ?Password: Re-thinking the ?Possible? with Spinoza and Deleuze
The Power of Spinoza: Feminist Conjunctions
As a constructive alternative to the exclusionary binaries of Cartesian philosophy, Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens turn to Spinoza. Spinoza's understanding of the body as in relation takes the focus of philosophical thought from the homo-geneous subject to the heterogeneity of the social, and the focus of politics from individual rights to collective responsibility. The implications for feminism are radical; Spinoza enables a reconceptualizatio…
The Power of Spinoza: Feminist Conjunctions: Susan James Interviews
As a constructive alternative to the exclusionary binaries of Cartesian philosophy, Genevieve Lloyd and Moira Gatens turn to Spinoza. Spinoza's understanding of the body as “in relation” takes the focus of philosophical thought from the homogeneous subject to the heterogeneity of the social, and the focus of politics from individual rights to collective responsibility. The implications for feminism are radical; Spinoza enables a reconceptualizati…
Feminism as “Password”: Re-thinking the “Possible” with Spinoza and Deleuze
This paper reads Deleuze through a Spinozist lens to conceive of the human being as a dynamic and complex whole in constant interchange with its environment. The author thus moves beyond philosophical dualisms, and challenges the assumption that a hierarchical normative organization is the only possible world. Using the example of rape, she argues that micropolitical strategies might disrupt and “pass” the juridical order and open up alternative,…
Gender and Institutions: Welfare, Work and Citizenship
1. Institutions, embodiment and sexual difference Moira Gatens Part I. Beyond the Male Breadwinner: Welfare, Housing and Household Labour: 2. Life-course and labour market transitions: an alternative model for welfare state design Deborah Mitchell 3. Reshaping housing policy and the benefits of urban/regional location: why gender matters Bettina Cass 4. Moving toward equality? Questions of change and equality in household work patterns Janeen Bax…
If Mutual Obligation Is the Answer, What Is the Question
Can Human Rights Accommodate Women's Rights? Towards an Embodied Account of Social Norms, Social Meaning, and Cultural Change
The 'Disciplined Imagination: Literature as ‘Experimental’ Philosophy
Illusion of Consent: Engaging with Carole Pateman
Re-Coupling Gender and Genre
Over thirty years ago Michele Le Dœuff coined the phrase “the Heloise complex” to refer to a certain kind of erotico-theoretical transference between a philosopher and his disciple or student.1 Alt
"Marian Evans, George Henry Lewes and "George Eliot
The idea that it might be possible to explore “gender” and “genre” as conceptually coupled through the study of intellectual couplings from different historical periods is the kernel from which thi
Revisiting the Continental Shelf: Moira Gatens on Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Eliot, Feuerbach, and Spinoza
Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality
Moira Gatens investigates the ways in which differently sexed bodies can occupy the same social or political space. Representations of sexual difference have unacknowledged philosophical roots which cannot be dismissed as a superficial bias on the part of the philosopher, nor removed without destroying the coherence of the philosophical system concerned. The deep structural bias against women extends beyond metaphysics and its effects are felt in…
Cloud-Borne Angels, Prophets and the Old Woman’s Flower-Pot: Reading George Eliot’s Realism alongside Spinoza’s ‘beings of the imagination’
Why does Eliot set up a contrast between 'cloud-borne angels' and 'old women' going about their domestic tasks? And why would the exclusion of ordinary folk from 'the region of Art' risk limiting the scope and fitness of 'our religion and philosophy'? And what has all this to do with her allusions to the 'ideal' and 'the real'? This paper posits a reading of Eliot's realist approach as a self-conscious narrative strategy that draws on elements of…
Let’s Talk Story: Gender and the Narrative Self
Through a critical reading of Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel, Woman Warrior, this paper addresses Amy Allen’s criticism that Seyla Benhabib’s conception of narrative agency involves the idea of a gender-neutral core self. Allen’s criticism of Benhabib is found wanting and the notion of an ungendered self is judged incoherent. Rather, gender is one of a number of markers at work in the open-ended narrative construction of identity
Frankenstein, Spinoza, and exemplarity
This paper reads Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, through the lens of three themes in Spinoza’s philosophy. First, the bondage of the passions; second, the importance of the imitation of affects as grounding sociability; and, finally, the problematic relationship between human normative life and the rest of nature, posed by Spinoza’s immanent ontology. Like Spinoza’s exemplars in the Ethics and in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Shelley’s …
Institutional Transformations: Imagination, Embodiment, and Affect
The idea that social and political institutions can be designed in order to achieve specific human ends goes back, at least, to Plato’s presentation of the appropriate form of the just city-state i
Reframing Honour in Heterosexual Imaginaries
This paper explores the relationship between honour and recognition in the context of normative heterosexuality, and the implications of this relationship for sustaining and transforming problematic sexual norms. Building on recent attempts to move beyond a narrow and restrictive focus on consent as a means of thinking through the ethics of heterosexual sex, we reflect critically on the concept of honour in this domain. Honour, in our approach, i…
Singularity, similarity, and exemplarity in Spinoza’s philosophy
In the Preface to Part Four of the Ethics, Spinoza offers the reader an exemplar of human nature. However, Spinoza does not conceive of human nature as a universal in which each human being participates, simply by virtue of being human. Rather, each human being is conceived as singular. Thriving individual lives assume thriving communities composed of (somewhat) like-minded and (somewhat) like-embodied individuals. The model, or exemplar, then, m…
Sociology (18 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Political science (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought (8 works)