User:Ellawhiteley/sandbox

Moira Gatens
Moira Gatens is the Challis Professor of Philosophy at The University of Sydney.

Gatens' research spans social and political philosophy, ethics, feminist philosophy, 17th century rationalism, and the philosophy of literature. Her most recent research focuses on Spinoza and George Eliot.

Education and Career
Gatens began her teaching career at Monash University in 1987, before moving to the Australian National University. In 1992, she started at Sydney University, and has been there since. She has, however, held short term positions during this time across the world; she was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin in 2007-8, and held the Spinoza Chair at the University of Amsterdam in 2010. In addition, she is a fellow of the Academy of the Humanities and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She was also President of the Australasian Association of Philosophy in 2011, and was appointed her current position of Challis Professor of Philosophy in 2012.

Research areas
Gatens has been especially influenced by Spinozist ideas of embodiment. Some of her most influential work involves applying Spinoza's anti-dualistic metaphysics to the sex/gender distinction in feminist philosophy. Gatens claims that the sex/gender distinction can act like a dualism mapping onto the mind/body distinction. By focussing entirely on socialisation practices, Gatens claims that the sex/gender distinction ends up treating the body as neutral and passive. She thinks that we need to bring the body back into focus; she says that our body, "can and does intervene to confirm or deny various social significances” . By way of an example, she says that femininity acted out by a female body differs from femininity acted out by a male body. Crucially, she sees the body, biology, and sex, as malleable; it is shaped by our cultural constructions, but, our cultural constructions are also shaped by our bodies, in a looping effect. Gatens, because of this work, is considered to be part of an informal movement sometimes called 'Corporeal Feminism', along with two other Australian philosophers: Elizabeth Grosz and Genevieve Lloyd.

Publications
Gatens has both written and edited several books, published many book chapters and peer-reviewed papers in journals of philosophy.