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Feminism, Materialism, Critical Theory: A Symposium in Honour of Gillian Howie (1965–2013) (Conference, Liverpool, 16 December 2013)

posted on March 16, 2025

As many of you know, Prof Gill Howie was, right up until the moment of her untimely and deeply mourned death earlier this year, an inspirational contributor to the medical humanities, philosophy, feminist theory, and many other fields. Please find below details of a symposium to celebrate her work.

Feminism, Materialism, Critical Theory:
A Symposium to Celebrate and Engage with the Work of

Gillian Howie (1965-2013)

Monday 16th December, 2013
School of the Arts Library, 19 Abercromby Square, University of Liverpool

“My guiding principle is that the work of philosophy should be concerned with the intelligibility of the world. This is not because everything can be explained, grasped, or even communicated, but because if, as feminists, we wish to change the world, then we need to know what we are dealing with.”

(Gillian Howie, 2010)

The University of Liverpool and the Society of Women in Philosophy (SWIP UK) are pleased to announce this one-day symposium, to be held at the University of Liverpool on Monday 16th December 2013.

Speakers will include:

  • Christine Battersby
  • Stella Sandford
  • Margrit Shildrick
  • Alison Stone

Professor Howie was a long-standing member of SWIP, and taught philosophy at the University of Liverpool from 1995-2013. Her research interests were extremely wide-ranging, including:

  • Feminist materialisms
  • Feminist theologies and spiritualities, especially the thought of Luce Irigaray
  • Critical theory, especially the thought of Theodor Adorno
  • Existentialism, especially the thought of Jean Paul Sartre
  • Pedagogy and Higher Education

Her most recent monograph, Between Feminism and Materialism: a Question of Method (Palgrave 2010), covers a huge amount of philosophical ground, with chapters on ‘Production’, ‘Objectivity’, ‘Reason’, Essentialism’, ‘Identity’, ‘Non-Identity’, ‘Sex and Gender’ and ‘Patriarchy’.

The workshop is free (not including dinner). To register, please send an email to Victoria Browne, stating any dietary and access requirements and whether you would like a place at dinner after the event.

To find out more about Professor Howie’s publications, see here.

And to see her lecture on the philosophical significance of life-limiting illness, see here.

Programme

Morning Sessions

09.30: Welcome

09.40 – 11.00: Session 1

Christine Battersby, University of Warwick (40 mins) Gillian Howie’s Situated Philosophy: Theorising the Intersections of Self, Body and World

Stella Sandford, Kingston University (40 mins) Title tbc

11.00 – 11.30: Coffee, tea and biscuits

11.30 – 13.00: Session 2

Victoria Browne, Oxford Brookes University (30 mins) ‘Come back to me when you’ve read the Critique of Pure Reason: Gill Howie on Pedagogy, Criticality and Intellectual Inheritance’

Patrice Haynes, Liverpool Hope University (30 mins) Title tbc

Jan Jobling, University of Liverpool (30 mins) Title tbc

13.00- 14.00: Lunch

Afternoon Sessions

14.00 – 15.40: Session 3

Alison Stone, University of Lancaster (40 mins) Title tbc

Roundtable discussion on ‘Living with Dying’ (60 mins) With Michael McGhee (Liverpool), Ned Hassan (Liverpool Hope), Pamela Sue Anderson (Oxford), Beverly Clack (Oxford Brookes) and Brendan Larvor (Hertfordshire). Chair: Laura Green, University of Liverpool

15.40 – 16.00: Coffee and tea

16.00 – 17.20: Session 4

Kimberly Hutchings, London School of Economics (40 mins) Title tbc

Margrit Shildrick, University of Linköping (40 mins) Title tbc

17.20 – 17.30: Closing

Evening

17.30 – 19.00

Wine Reception (SOTA Library)

19.30

Dinner at The Quarter, Falkner Street

Filed Under: Conferences

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