Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ChoreoCare (Choreographies of vulnerability :towards a new public ethics of care)
Período documentado: 2022-01-01 hasta 2023-12-31
My research grounds a public ethics of care in a phenomenological understanding of vulnerability by constructing a historical trajectory that extends from ancient Greek drama to contemporary feminist theory. Its development is articulated on the grounds of three fundamental research questions: (a) How are we to narrate vulnerability as an embodied condition and practices of care in their situatedness? (b) How is care instituted, based on vulnerability and interdependency as the fundamental traits of (not only human) life? (c) How is care performed as a collective practice able to transform the socio-political context?
My claim is that, if a collectivity recognizes vulnerability as a condition that all individuals embody, although each one does so in a different way and with different resources, it will also promote practices of care as a necessarily shared task.
Among the different critiques regarding the use of vulnerability in legal studies, some concern its understanding as an ontological concept (namely vulnerability as a shared human condition) and others its use as a political and legal identification of specific groups or individuals as being “vulnerable subjects.”
Conversely, I still consider the vulnerability framework a productive way to understand politics and to actively initiate political mobilizations, groups, and even institutions. Some of these may gather many bodies, like feminist assemblies, mobilizations for environmental justice, or strikes. Others might be small gatherings, like those organized by nonprofit organizations to raise awareness on certain topics. Some of them are institutionally framed, others are entirely bottom-up. I propose reading care as a key notion for understanding the inaugural character of these kinds of gatherings and demonstrations. Indeed, they are not solely a reaction to pervasive conditions of inequality, discrimination, and violence, but rather they initiate something by performatively influencing the socio-political context in which they are enacted and perhaps transforming it.
With a keen focus on pluralism and diversity, my philosophical investigation brings together sexual difference feminism, feminist phenomenology, post-structuralist feminism, and Black and decolonial feminisms. While engaging with all these traditions, I always emphasize the different methodologies adopted by each of them and its significance, as methodology is a crucial aspect of what defines a philosophical approach as feminist. I also tackle various forms of oppression and marginalization from an intersectional stance, as well as modes of relationality and community building. Moreover, my research primarily adopts a thematic approach, rather than focusing on specific authors, and arises from the urgency to engage with ethical issues concerning political and gender justice.
My claim is that, if a collectivity recognizes vulnerability as a condition that all individuals embody, although each one does so in a different way and with different resources, it will also promote practices of care as a necessarily shared task.
Among the different critiques regarding the use of vulnerability in legal studies, some concern its understanding as an ontological concept (namely vulnerability as a shared human condition) and others its use as a political and legal identification of specific groups or individuals as being “vulnerable subjects.”
Conversely, I still consider the vulnerability framework a productive way to understand politics and to actively initiate political mobilizations, groups, and even institutions. Some of these may gather many bodies, like feminist assemblies, mobilizations for environmental justice, or strikes. Others might be small gatherings, like those organized by nonprofit organizations to raise awareness on certain topics. Some of them are institutionally framed, others are entirely bottom-up. I propose reading care as a key notion for understanding the inaugural character of these kinds of gatherings and demonstrations. Indeed, they are not solely a reaction to pervasive conditions of inequality, discrimination, and violence, but rather they initiate something by performatively influencing the socio-political context in which they are enacted and perhaps transforming it.
With a keen focus on pluralism and diversity, my philosophical investigation brings together sexual difference feminism, feminist phenomenology, post-structuralist feminism, and Black and decolonial feminisms. While engaging with all these traditions, I always emphasize the different methodologies adopted by each of them and its significance, as methodology is a crucial aspect of what defines a philosophical approach as feminist. I also tackle various forms of oppression and marginalization from an intersectional stance, as well as modes of relationality and community building. Moreover, my research primarily adopts a thematic approach, rather than focusing on specific authors, and arises from the urgency to engage with ethical issues concerning political and gender justice.
I wrote my first monograph Il teatro della polis: filosofia dell’agonismo tragico (Pisa: ETS, 2024)
Articles published:
“Feminist archives: narrating embodied vulnerabilities and practices of care,” Biblioteca della Libertà, vol. LVII, no. 235 (2022): 39-71 (Planned as Deliverable 3).
“Pensare l’agone: Foucault, Cassin e la storia dell’esclusione della sofistica,” Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica, 3 (2022): 261-280.
Additionally, I prepared a book proposal that is currently under review with Oxford University Press, titled Staging the Agon: Gendered Logos and Corporeality in Sophocles.
I embarked in a close reading of the dialogue between Adriana Cavarero and Judith Butler. My research has focused also on the work of Michel Foucault, Martha Fineman, Estelle Ferrarese, Saidiya Hartman, Deva Woodly, Christina Sharpe, Cristina Rivera Garza, Leslie Kern, and Sayak Valencia.
Work on specific case studies for the “choreographies of vulnerability and care” and “instituting care” sections of the project: Sarah’s Circle nonprofit organization in Chicago; Planned Parenthood of Illinois; Women’s Center at DePaul University; Ni Una Menos movement. I participated in several initiatives at the Women’s Center and lead several reading groups (as a volunteer) at Sarah’s Circle while collecting information and opinions from the people involved. I have been reading about Planned Parenthood and Ni Una Menos
At the end of 2023 I signed a contract with Rowman & Littlefield to work as co-editor on this edited volume: E. Mason, V. Moro (eds.), Judith Butler and Marxism: The Radical Feminism of Performativity, Vulnerability, and Care, Rowman & Littlefield (forthcoming). We plan to have a full draft of the manuscript ready by the end of 2024.
I wrote an invited book chapter, that is currently under peer-review, titled “Adriana Cavarero’s public ethics of care: plural uniqueness, narratability, vulnerability,” in C. Salzani, F. Dal Bo (eds.), The Resistible Crisis of Italian Thought, SUNY Press (forthcoming). I suggest to replace this publication with Deliverable 5.
At DePaul I attended two graduate seminars taught by my hosting supervisors: Prof. Birmingham’s seminar on Rousseau (3.5 hours weekly, for three months in the Spring quarter 2022) and Dr. Soderback’s seminar on Cavarero (3.5 hours weekly, Fall quarter 2022).
I attended the DePaul Teaching and Learning Annual Conference (05/05/2023).
I presented my work in many invited and peer reviewed conferences.
Conference I have organized with my own research funding:
13.International conference 16th Hannah Arendt Circle at UNIVR (26-29/06/2023)
Public website designed by Massimiliano Parolin under my supervision + training to learn how to use it.
Articles published:
“Feminist archives: narrating embodied vulnerabilities and practices of care,” Biblioteca della Libertà, vol. LVII, no. 235 (2022): 39-71 (Planned as Deliverable 3).
“Pensare l’agone: Foucault, Cassin e la storia dell’esclusione della sofistica,” Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Politica, 3 (2022): 261-280.
Additionally, I prepared a book proposal that is currently under review with Oxford University Press, titled Staging the Agon: Gendered Logos and Corporeality in Sophocles.
I embarked in a close reading of the dialogue between Adriana Cavarero and Judith Butler. My research has focused also on the work of Michel Foucault, Martha Fineman, Estelle Ferrarese, Saidiya Hartman, Deva Woodly, Christina Sharpe, Cristina Rivera Garza, Leslie Kern, and Sayak Valencia.
Work on specific case studies for the “choreographies of vulnerability and care” and “instituting care” sections of the project: Sarah’s Circle nonprofit organization in Chicago; Planned Parenthood of Illinois; Women’s Center at DePaul University; Ni Una Menos movement. I participated in several initiatives at the Women’s Center and lead several reading groups (as a volunteer) at Sarah’s Circle while collecting information and opinions from the people involved. I have been reading about Planned Parenthood and Ni Una Menos
At the end of 2023 I signed a contract with Rowman & Littlefield to work as co-editor on this edited volume: E. Mason, V. Moro (eds.), Judith Butler and Marxism: The Radical Feminism of Performativity, Vulnerability, and Care, Rowman & Littlefield (forthcoming). We plan to have a full draft of the manuscript ready by the end of 2024.
I wrote an invited book chapter, that is currently under peer-review, titled “Adriana Cavarero’s public ethics of care: plural uniqueness, narratability, vulnerability,” in C. Salzani, F. Dal Bo (eds.), The Resistible Crisis of Italian Thought, SUNY Press (forthcoming). I suggest to replace this publication with Deliverable 5.
At DePaul I attended two graduate seminars taught by my hosting supervisors: Prof. Birmingham’s seminar on Rousseau (3.5 hours weekly, for three months in the Spring quarter 2022) and Dr. Soderback’s seminar on Cavarero (3.5 hours weekly, Fall quarter 2022).
I attended the DePaul Teaching and Learning Annual Conference (05/05/2023).
I presented my work in many invited and peer reviewed conferences.
Conference I have organized with my own research funding:
13.International conference 16th Hannah Arendt Circle at UNIVR (26-29/06/2023)
Public website designed by Massimiliano Parolin under my supervision + training to learn how to use it.
The MSC fellowship is helping me matching the standard requirements by allowing me to: a) increase and improve my international record of publication; b) participate in international conferences relevant in my main research fields, political philosophy and feminist theory; c) extend my academic network and the international impact of my research; d) further demonstrate my multidisciplinary expertise; e) improve my teaching abilities.
During my third and final year at the University of Verona, my project will center political and feminist phenomenology. The goal of this part of the project is to investigate the possibility of a politics of care based, on the one hand, on the demand for institutionally recognized social infrastructures of care, and, on the other hand, on collective practices – the choreographies of vulnerability – able to transform the socio-political context. I will address from a feminist perspective the phenomenological characterization of public spaces and the meaning of social infrastructures of care. The culmination of my research is a book project (WP5: Book Project, months 25-36) titled, as the project itself, Choreographies of Vulnerability: Toward a New Public Ethics of Care. I will submit the book proposal to Northwestern University Press by Fall 2024, and my goal is to complete a first draft of the manuscript by June 2025. Looking ahead, over the next two years, I intend to further refine and implement the outcomes of this project. ChoreoCare allows me to consolidate my career prospects at the University of Verona, framing my research in political theory with expertise in current debates in political and feminist theory in the United States.
During my third and final year at the University of Verona, my project will center political and feminist phenomenology. The goal of this part of the project is to investigate the possibility of a politics of care based, on the one hand, on the demand for institutionally recognized social infrastructures of care, and, on the other hand, on collective practices – the choreographies of vulnerability – able to transform the socio-political context. I will address from a feminist perspective the phenomenological characterization of public spaces and the meaning of social infrastructures of care. The culmination of my research is a book project (WP5: Book Project, months 25-36) titled, as the project itself, Choreographies of Vulnerability: Toward a New Public Ethics of Care. I will submit the book proposal to Northwestern University Press by Fall 2024, and my goal is to complete a first draft of the manuscript by June 2025. Looking ahead, over the next two years, I intend to further refine and implement the outcomes of this project. ChoreoCare allows me to consolidate my career prospects at the University of Verona, framing my research in political theory with expertise in current debates in political and feminist theory in the United States.