gender

Politics of the Ordinary – Care, Ethics and Forms of Life

The 11th volume in the Peeters Ethics of Care series is written by Sandra Laugier: Politics of the Ordinary – Care, Ethics and Forms of Life (2020). In the spring of 2019, our editors Tessa Smorenburg and Madzy Dekema, travelled to Paris (FR) to interview her about the book which was also the cornerstone of her key note speech in this year’s conference of the Care Ethics Research Consortium. Her plea is to use ordinary language philosophy as a basis for a re-definition of care ethics and to draw attention to the ordinary life as the focus of care in moral expression.

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Girl, The everyday struggle of a transgender

The Belgian film Girl (Lukas Dhont, 2018) shares the intimate life of a fifteen year old girl named Lara. She dances at a renowned ballet academy in Belgium, and she hopes to fulfil her dream of becoming a professional ballerina. The film opens with her admission interview, wherein it is explained that she will be granted a trial period – because Lara isn’t just any girl, she is a transgender girl, born male.

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Moonlight – Who decides who you are?

‘You decide who you are’, Juan tells the young Chiron in one scene. But I wonder, what will appear if I look closer? The film Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) won three Oscars – including the one for Best Film, a first for a film with a cast consisting entirely of people of color. On top of that fact, the film also deals with overt Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) themes, a controversial subject in conservative and predominantly white Hollywood. Moonlight tells the story of a young, homosexual Afro-American man who grows up in a poor neighbourhood of Miami, USA. Moreover it shows the complexity of finding one’s position in a masculine environment while having to hide your nature from the light of day. Continue reading Moonlight – Who decides who you are?

Interview Kari Greenswag

Kari Greenswag (Los Angeles, USA) has finished her PhD at the department of Philosophy of the University of Sydney (Australia) in 2016. Her doctoral thesis is called “Globalizing the Ethics of Care: Policy, Transformation, and Judgment”. The burning issues she examines in her thesis are the increasing inequality in the world, the continued marginalization of women, and more broadly the growing crisis of care. Greenswag argues that the ethics of care should be considered an important lens through which to view complex international moral and political contexts. Continue reading Interview Kari Greenswag