I’ll be discussing “Girl Power” with Susie Orbach and Sarah Hill at the 2024 How the Light Gets In festival in Kenwood House, London.

The New York Times proclaimed last year that girls rule the internet, thanks in part to the success of the Barbie movie and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. But, while stereotypical femininity made an unexpected comeback, it remains unknown what femininity is or what a more feminine world looks like. Feminists themselves disagree. Second-wave feminists reject traditional feminine aesthetics, while third-wave feminists often celebrate them. The Barbie movie had a feminist narrative, but it still led to a 136% rise in searches for clothing with traditional Barbie aesthetics. 
Should we reject the re-introduction of traditional feminine stereotypes as undermining of the core goals of feminism? Should we focus on practical matters like the defence of equal pay and abortion rights? Or is the female/male binary at fault and do we need to give up categorising people or behaviours as feminine in the first place?

Tickets are available here.

Seminar in Contemporary Political Thought

Convened by Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) and Dr Duncan Bell (POLIS)
University of Cambridge

Michaelmas Term 2017

All sessions are held on Fridays at 1 – 2.30pm in the Bawden Room of Jesus College. This is in West Court, which can be accessed either via the main entrance of Jesus College or directly from Jesus Lane.

Refreshments will be served at the close of formal proceedings. There are no precirculated papers and all are welcome.

6 Oct: Tom Shakespeare, University of East Anglia: “The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: making use of the stilts?”

20 Oct: Avia Pasternak and Jeff Howard, UCL: “Criminal Acccountability, Restorative Justice, and the Moral Standing of States”

3 Nov: Katrin Flikschuh, LSE: “Philosophical Racism”

17 Nov: Bernardo Zacka, University of Cambridge: “When the Rules Run Out: Informal Taxonomies at the Front Lines of Public Service”

Lent Term 2018

All seminars will be held in Upper Hall, Jesus College. Please note that this is a different room from that used by the Seminar in MT. Upper Hall is in the old part of Jesus College, enter via the Porters’ Lodge.

The seminars are held on Fridays at 1 – 2.30pm, followed by refreshments. There are no pre-circulated papers and all are welcome.

**Please note also that the third Seminar this term deviates from the fortnightly pattern, to accommodate a speaker coming from overseas.**

19^th January: Cecile Laborde, University of Oxford. “Liberal Egalitarianism and the Critique of Religion”

2^nd February: Heather Widdows, University of Birmingham. Title TBC.

9^th February (NOTE DATE): Sam Moyn, Yale University. “The Doctor’s Plot: How Philosophizing Human Rights Began”

2^nd March: Herjeet Marway, University of Birmingham. “Procreative Justice and Genetic Selection for Non-Disease Traits: The Case of Fair Skin”

I’m a Symposiast at the 2017 Joint Sessions of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association in Edinburgh. My paper is called “Ideology and Normativity” and it responds to Sally Haslanger. You can find details here and read my paper here.

I was a keynote speaker for the Annual Conference of the ASPP at the University of Sheffield in June 2017, talking about my book Against Marriage. You can find details of the conference here.

I am giving the keynote lecture at the conference on Freedom and Autonomy at Birkbeck College, University of London in June 2017. My lecture is titled “Marriage and Freedom.”

Lent Term 2017

Seminar in Contemporary Political Thought

Michaelmas Term 2016

Convenors: Dr John Filling (Philosophy) and Dr Paul Sagar (POLIS).

Seminars will be held in the Audit Room, King’s College

7^th October: Dr Timothy Fowler, University of Bristol

Political Liberalism, Science, and Faith: The Case of Intelligent Design

21st October: Dr Robert Jubb, University of Reading

Civil Disobedience and the Disaggregation of Political Authority

4^th November: TBC

 18^th November: Dr Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, Warwick University

The Doctrine of Gender Identity – A Critical Examination

I’ll be speaking at a symposium on Kimberley Brownlee’s work on social rights at the University of Warwick in September 2016.

All sessions are held in the Coleridge Room of Jesus College, Cambridge at 1-2.30pm.

15^th January

Ruth Kinna, Loughborough University
Anarchist Feminism/Anarchism and Feminism: Waves, Exclusions and Intersections

29^th January

Catherine Lu, McGill University
Reparations and Historic Injustice

12^th February

Alan Finlayson, University of East Anglia
Parody and Political Speech

26^th February

Mihaela Mihai, University of Edinburgh
The Art of Solidarity

The seminars will take place on Fridays between 1.00-2.30pm in the Coleridge Room, Jesus College. All are welcome.

Convenors: Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) and Dr Duncan Bell (POLIS)

9^th October

Adam Swift, Warwick University,
Family Values

 23^rd October

Jonathan Wolff, University College London
Forms of Differential Social Inclusion

6^th November

Marc Stears, University of Oxford & Former Chief Speechwriter for Ed Miliband
It’s Not Just the Politics That are Missing:Realist Political Theory and the Everyday

 20^th November

Lea Ypi, London School of Economics
Revolutionary Partisanship

I responded to a paper by Nancy Bauer at this conference in Birkbeck in June 2015, organised by Prof Susan James. Details here.

I was delighted to be a representative of contemporary political philosophy, talking about Feminism in Philosophy, in this year’s Balzan-Skinner conference in the History of Political Thought. Find details here. The conference is on 22 May 2015.

I was neither an organiser or paper-giver at this conference for David Miller in May 2015, but I was honoured and delighted to give a toast to David, who supervised my DPhil with Lois McNay. Thanks to Chris Bertram for the photo, and to Dan Butt, Sarah Fine and Zofia Stemplowska for organising the conference.

I spoke at the WOW – Women of the World – Festival in Cambridge in March 2015, on a panel on Women’s Bodies, Private Places.

See the programme here.

I’m speaking at the first of four workshops on Beauty Demands in Warwick this March. Find details of the workshop here.

The seminars will take place on Fridays between 1.00-2.30pm in the Coleridge Room, Jesus College. All are welcome.

Convenors: Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) and Dr Duncan Bell (POLIS)

16^th January: Hillel Steiner, University of Manchester
Levels of Non-Ideality 

30^th January: Jeff McMahan, University of Oxford
Liability, Proportionality, and the Number of Aggressors

 13^th February: Kimberlee Brownlee, University of Warwick
Social Contribution Injustice

 27^th February: Andrea Sangiovanni, King’s College, London
Moral Equality, Respect, and Cruelty

Faculty of Philosophy and POLIS

Convenors: Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) and Dr Duncan Bell (POLIS)

The seminars take place on alternate Fridays between 1.00-2.30pm in the Coleridge Room, Jesus College. All are welcome.

Michaelmas Term 2014

10th October (week 1)
Miriam Ronzoni, University of Manchester
“Republicanism and Global Politics: Three Requirements in Tension”

24th October (week 3)
Elizabeth Frazer, University of Oxford
“Reading Shakespeare Politically”

7th November (week 5)
Tracy Strong, UC San Diego
“Where Do We Find Ourselves? Hawthorne and the Actuality of Political Space”

21st November (week 7)
Moya Lloyd, Loughborough University
“Naming Absence: The Politics of Body Counts”

Convenors: Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) and Dr Duncan Bell (POLIS)

The seminars take place on alternate Fridays between 1.00-2.30pm in the Coleridge Room, Jesus College. All are welcome.

Michaelmas Term 2014

10th October (week 1)
Miriam Ronzoni, University of Manchester
“Republicanism and Global Politics: Three Requirements in Tension”

24th October (week 3)
Elizabeth Frazer, University of Oxford
“Reading Shakespeare Politically”

7th November (week 5)
Tracy Strong, UC San Diego
“Where Do We Find Ourselves? Hawthorne and the Actuality of Political Space”

21st November (week 7)
Moya Lloyd, Loughborough University
“Naming Absence: The Politics of Body Counts”

I participated in this excellent event at the University of Birmingham. Details here.

The seminars  take place on Fridays between 1.00-2.30pm in the Coleridge Room, Jesus College. All are welcome.

 17th January
Christian List, LSE: Theory Construction in Political Theory: A Philosophy-of-Science Perspective

31st January
Sarah Fine, King’s College, London: Migration and Distributive Justice

14th February
Moya Loyd, Loughborough University: Deaths That Matter: Critical Reflections on the Politics of Mourning and the Limits of Human Belonging

 28th February
Matt Kramer, University of Cambridge: Torture, Morality, and Law

The seminars will take place on Fridays between 1.00-2.30pm in the Coleridge Room, Jesus College. All are welcome.
Convenors: Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) and Dr David Blunt (POLIS)

 11^th October
 Jules Holroyd, University of Nottingham: Moral and Institutional Desert

 25^th October
 Ben Colburn, University of Glasgow: Beneficence and Blackmail

8^th November
Alex Voorhoeve, LSE: How Should We Aggregate Competing Claims?

 22^nd November
Catriona McKinnon, University of Reading: Crimes Against Humanity, and Future People