MUSINGS

Being a Black Woman Philosopher:

Reflections on Founding the Collegium
of Black Women Philosophers
KATHRYN T. GINES

Although the American Philosophical Association has more than 11,000 members,
there are still fewer than 125 Black philosophers in the United States, including fewer
than thirty Black women holding a PhD in philosophy and working in a philosophy
department in the academy.1The following is a musing about how I became one of
them and how I have sought to create a positive philosophical space for all of us.

After completing high school at the age of sixteen, I went to Spelman College
(a historically Black college for women in Atlanta, Ga.) to major in biology,
pre-med, and pre-law. The daughter of a lawyer, I initially had aspirations to
complete a JD/MD dual-degree program with professional plans to practice law
in the area of medical research ethics. However, I soon realized that I did not
have a sustainable interest in the sciences, and I sought a new major. After
sharing my aspirations with a philosophy professor, I was persuaded that majoring in philosophy would offer the best preparation for my future goals, and
on that basis I changed my major. It took only one course, Introduction to
Philosophy, for me to realize that I had found my true intellectual passion.
This realization was confirmed with each additional philosophy course in
which I enrolled including the history of philosophy, philosophy and literature,
and feminist philosophy.
One of the great benefits of studying philosophy at a historically Black liberal
arts college for women is that I was encouraged to examine philosophy through
Hypatia vol. 26, no. 2 (Spring, 2011) r by Hypatia, Inc.

430

Hypatia

the lenses of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation while also being prepared
to interrogate these very categories and concepts with the theoretical tools
available in philosophy. Although no philosophy professors in the department
were women of color at that time, the Black and white male professors taught
not only the traditional (that is to say, white-male-dominated) philosophy
canon but also Africana philosophy and feminist philosophy.2 Consequently,
being a philosophy major in this unique intellectual space was both affirming
and transformative.
When I discovered that only about sixteen Black women at the time (this
was in the 1990s) held PhDs in philosophy, I felt a moral and deeply personal
obligation to increase the representation of Black women within the discipline.
Accordingly, I pursued a doctorate in philosophy at the University of
Memphis.3 I was fortunate to be a part of a graduate program that was pluralistic in the sense that it offered training in both the analytic and continental
philosophy traditions. The philosophy department also took seriously the value
of race and gender diversity among graduate students and faculty beyond mere
lip service and tokenism. For example, when I entered the graduate program,
three Black women graduate students were already in the department. My
cohort included one other Black woman and a Black man. The department
would continue to recruit women and people of color into the cohorts that
came after mine. Additionally, two people of color (one man and one woman)
were among the faculty during my time in the department.
As a graduate student I took a path less traveled, opting to marry and have
two children while pursuing my MA and PhD in philosophy. This was not my
plan going into graduate school; things just happened to work out that way.
Although I did not initially set my intentions on becoming a scholar and wife
and mother at the same time, it never occurred to me that I could not do all
three. For this I thank my partner Jason for his commitment to take this journey with me wherever it has led us, as well as my mother, Kathleen SmallwoodJohnson. Having returned to school to earn her MEd after giving birth to me,
and then her JD after having my sister, my mother demonstrated the real possibility of having a family while simultaneously pursuing higher education and
professional aspirations. This is not to say that I was expected to get married
and have children while in school, only that I was not raised with the limiting
belief that these aspects of life were mutually exclusive. The point I am making
is that I did not feel obligated to avoid marriage and children altogether or
postpone the possibility of either or both until after tenure because I had an
alternative model in my own family. This decision on my part has been personally satisfying and fulfilling. Rather than taking away from my professional
aspirations, it has helped me remain grounded in a profession that often feels as
though it is built on quicksand.

Kathryn T. Gines

431

After completing and defending my dissertation in 2003, I remained in

Memphis for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship, during which I taught courses
in philosophy as well as in African and African American Studies. This would
be followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Emory University at the Center for
Humanistic Inquiry. I received my first tenure-track job in 2005 at Vanderbilt
University with a primary appointment in African American and Diaspora
Studies and a secondary appointment (known there as a courtesy appointment) in philosophy.
Throughout my graduate school experience, and then later when transitioning into this tenure-track position, I often desired to be a part of a philosophical organization of Black women. But as far as I knew, no such
organization existed. I would like to acknowledge and thank Charles Mills for
enthusiastically urging me to create such an organization several years ago. My
own desire coupled with Millss encouragement led me to think more concretely about the possibility of founding such an organization. During a
research visit to Paris for the fiftieth anniversary of the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists in September 2006, I thought at length about
the meaning and significance of the historic 1956 meeting. In conversation
with other Black women scholars attending the anniversary events, I continued to ruminate about the under-representation of Black women in the
academy in general and in the discipline of philosophy in particular. Upon my
return to the United States, I drafted the document that would materialize into
a proposal for the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers (CBWP). I was
able to share ideas and receive helpful feedback about the specific structure of
the CBWP in conversations with Anika Mann.
The inspiration for founding the CBWP has always been rooted in my desire
to share my own positive experiences in the discipline and in the academy with
others. Having benefited from the knowledge and wisdom of encouraging
mentors both when I was a student and an assistant professor, I wanted part of
the vision of the CBWP to be to cultivate similar positive experiences and opportunities for its participants. Thus, although a remediation of the low
numbers of Black women in philosophy remains a very important issue, I
would like to underscore the fact that the Collegium is not merely a reaction to
the lack of diversity and/or the racial and gender biases that operate not only
within the discipline and profession of philosophy but also in the academy
more generally.4 Accordingly, the CBWP seeks to create a positive space for
participants to experience intellectual growth, mentoring, and professional development. We reach out to senior professors to help cultivate scholars at the
junior level and we provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to meet and be mentored by both junior and senior professors of
philosophy.

432

Hypatia

The CBWP is a philosophical organization, launched in 2007, whose purpose is to encourage and foster networking and mentoring relationships among
the under-represented Black women in philosophy, including undergraduate
and graduate students as well as assistant, associate, and full professors in the
academy. The objective of the CBWP is to mentor and retain the Black
women who are currently professors or graduate students in philosophy while
simultaneously recruiting more Black women into the discipline. The specific
goals of the CBWP are as follows: to increase the representation of Black
women in philosophy in the academy; to provide a network for participants to
share their experience and expertise; to help participants in graduate programs
in philosophy successfully complete the PhD and transition well into the job
market and the academy; to help participants get into tenure-track positions; to
help participants successfully navigate the track to tenure; to help participants
develop research projects into publications; and to offer mentoring and professional development. In my estimation, the CBWP also benefits the profession
and discipline of philosophy through increased diversification along the lines of
race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, and sexual orientation (to name a few).
The CBWP annual conference is the primary vehicle for achieving these
goals. The inaugural conference was held October 1920, 2007, at Vanderbilt
University. The program included Anita L. Allen as the keynote speaker along
with presenters Jacqueline Scott, Sybol Cook Anderson, Janine Jones, DonnaDale Marcano, Devonya Havis, Gertrude Gonzales de Allen, and Lina Buffington. Paper topics included epistemology, ancient philosophy, political
philosophy, philosophy of law, pragmatism, and philosophy of race. Additionally, a recognition ceremony was held for Joyce Mitchell Cook (the first
African American woman to earn a PhD in philosophy), and workshops were
held for both students and faculty.5 With the press release announcing the
founding of the CBWP and the inaugural conference came inquiries from and
articles published in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher
Education, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Diverse Issues in Higher Education (see
Hunter 2007; Romano 2007b; and Wilson 2007).
After the inaugural conference I became a post-doctoral fellow in the Africana Research Center and the philosophy department at the Pennsylvania State
University. This was during the 20082009 academic year. I also gave birth to
my third child that year. In the fall of 2009, I became an assistant professor at
Penn State where I now have the distinct honor of working in a philosophy
department with ten Black women graduate students currently enrolled in the
PhD program.6 In addition to the departments traditional strengths, the program has built upon this foundation with strengths in pluralistic approaches to
the critical philosophy of race and feminist philosophy. Penn State became the
host institution to CBWP, and our second meeting (CBWP II) took place
there on May 12, 2009. Our keynote speaker was Michele Moody-Adams, and

Kathryn T. Gines

433

other presenters included Anita L. Allen, Desiree Melton, and Janine Jones.
Paper topics included aesthetics, existentialism, ethics/bioethics, social and
political philosophy, philosophy of race, and feminism. A special session
honoring Trailblazing Black Women Philosophers featured Anita L. Allen,
Michele Moody-Adams, Georgette Sinkler, and LaVerne Shelton. In addition
to a health workshop, professional development workshops were offered again
for students and faculty.7
The third conference, CBWP III, was held April 1617, 2010 at Penn State
with Marina Oshana as the keynote speaker. Kris Sealy, V. Denise James,
Donna-Dale Marcano, and Rozena Maart all gave papers, and a special session
on Black Women Philosophers: The Second Wave featured speakers Jacqueline Scott and Jennifer Vest. Workshop facilitators included Robert
Bernasconi and Melinda Contreas-Byrd. We had our highest number of participants thus far at CBWP III in 2010 (the most recent conference at the time
this is being written). With eighteen professors and twenty-seven students (including undergraduate and graduate students), a total of forty-five people
participated. Since the inaugural CBWP conference in 2007, two of the
CBWP participants have been promoted to associate professor. The higher
number of student participants in CBWP coupled with more junior faculty receiving tenure and promotion offer strong indicators of the positive impact that
CBWP is having in the discipline of philosophy. In spite of the challenges that
Black women philosophers continue to face, I am extremely encouraged by the
increasing number of Black women majoring in philosophy, choosing to pursue
graduate studies in philosophy, earning tenure and promotions, and participating in the CBWP conferences.
As I reflect on my experiences in the discipline of philosophy and the
founding of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers, I am reminded of
one particular telephone interview that I had in 2007. The interviewer inquired about why I chose to go into philosophy, and I recounted much of the
information already discussed here, including the dismal numbers of Black
women philosophers. Upon hearing this, the interviewer was surprised that I
would go into such a white-male-dominated discipline rather than running in
the opposite direction. I am sure I offered my staple reply to such reactions:
basically I am passionate about philosophy and I think it has great resources for
exploring questions and problems that are of interest to me. But I am often
annoyed by this reaction to my being a philosopher. I wonder, Why wouldnt I
(or shouldnt I) because of (or in spite of) my embodied existencethat is, my
embodiment as a Black womanbe interested in philosophical reasoning and
fields of inquiry? I think to myself, Who gave white men ownership of philosophical discourse? But then I quickly remember that the history of
philosophy has been constructed as decidedly male and European, and that

434

Hypatia

this is true across Western philosophical traditions, including continental and

analytic philosophy, and American pragmatism.
A typical introductory philosophy course or textbook presents the history of
philosophy as originating in ancient Greece with Thales and continuing
through the middle ages, modern period, and contemporary period with a list
of almost exclusively white, male, European (and a few American) philosophers.
I acknowledge that there are exceptions to this trend, but the overwhelming
majority of introductory philosophy readers are constructed in this exclusive format, and (unfortunately) many professional philosophers would not have it any
other way. The familiar tracing of philosophical thought, which allegedly has
origins in Greece and then was dispersed throughout Europe (namely to Germany, France, and Englandbut not so much to countries like Spain or Turkey)
and then took root in the United States, is one that some find comforting.8 But
others find this exclusivity quite alienating. At stake here is the more general
question of Who and/or what qualifies as a philosopher or as philosophy? And,
furthermore, Who has access to the discipline and discourse of philosophy?
These are questions that both discourage me and motivate me. When these
questions discourage me, I ask, Why do I insist on inserting myself (or other
intellectuals who are women and/or people of color) into this space that has
been constructed as explicitly white and male? When they motivate me, I seek
to expand the philosophy canon and continue to create spaces for myself (and
others) within a discipline that is capable of being both hospitable and hostile. More often than not, I am very encouraged about the prospects of
expanding the philosophy canon and about the possibilities of transforming
the discipline itself. These prospects and possibilities are a source of strength
when I am researching, writing, teaching, conferencing, and recruiting people
of color into the discipline.
In closing, I would like to acknowledge several philosophers who have been
an inspiration to me. Angela Davis: when I read her autobiography and learned
that she studied philosophy and German, it motivated me to pursue my philosophical aspirations. Joyce Mitchell Cook: the first African American woman
to earn a PhD in philosophy (Yale University 1965). When imagining what
the inaugural CBWP conference would be like, the conference would not have
been complete without her. I had the pleasure of honoring Cook at the inaugural CBWP conference in 2007 and she is a treasure. Anita L. Allen: the first
African American woman to hold both a PhD in philosophy (University of
Michigan) and a JD (Harvard Law School). Allen was among the very first
people to reply to my initial Save the Date email announcing the launching
of the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers. The fact that a scholar of her
stature would reply so promptly and make herself so accessible was invaluable
for me early on when I did not know how many people I could expect to be in
attendance at the inaugural conference. Email correspondences with Allen and

Kathryn T. Gines

435

other prominent philosophy professors confirmed for me that the vision of

CBWP as an organization that fosters mentoring between senior and junior
scholars (as well as students) could be made into a reality. Finally, I was able to
connect with Joyce Mitchell Cook through correspondences with Adrian
Piper. Piper earned her PhD in philosophy from Harvard University in 1981
and she is the first African American woman to be tenured in philosophy. Piper
mobilized Black women philosophers many years ago when our numbers were
far fewer.
Today, still fewer than thirty Black women (including Black women who
are not African American) hold a PhD in philosophy and work in a philosophy
department in academia. We have interests within and across philosophical
traditions and we are creating new traditions. We have areas of specialization
ranging from philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, logic, metaphysics
and epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics (including normative ethics, metaethics, health and bioethics), to philosophy of law, social and political philosophy,
critical philosophy of race, feminism, and existentialism, to Africana philosophy and Asian philosophy.
An argument circulates in academia known as the role model argument,
which claims that having a professor or authority figure of ones own race and/
or gender (especially when you are a member of an under-represented group)
can be a motivational factor for achievement. Following this reasoning, when
Black women see and/or read the scholarship of other Black women in philosophy, it allows the option of becoming a philosopher to enter into their realm
of possibilities in very concrete ways.
May we continue to be role models for ourselves and for others.
NOTES
1. I have intentionally capitalized Black as a racial category throughout my
essay. I prefer to keep Black capitalized just as African American is capitalized, though
I use Black rather than African American throughout because it is a more inclusive term
that is not limited to Black Americans. The term also better reflects the members of the
CBWP community, all of whom are not (and/or are not only) African American. It
should be noted that these numbers are estimates based on the data that I have been able
to collect in founding the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers. The American
Philosophical Association does not currently collect data on its members along the lines
of race, ethnicity, or gender. However, the APA website has a table of Data on the
Profession: Ph.D.s in Philosophy by Gender/Race/Ethnicity for the years 19911996.
A note accompanying the table states that it is derived from the Summary Reports on
Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities, for 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and
1996. National Academy Press (American Philosophical Association 2010a). The
APA website also shows Data on the Profession: Selected Demographic Information
on Philosophy Ph.D.s, 1995 where it states, Among all the fields in the humanities

436

Hypatia

History, Art History, Music, Philosophy, English/American Language/Literature, Classics, Modern Language/Literature, and Other (including Linguistics, American Studies,
etc.)Philosophy was the most disproportionately male. Of the 8300 Ph.D.s, 82.6%
were male and 17.4% female (American Philosophical Association 2010b).
2. I would like to acknowledge Roy Martinez, Charles S. Johnson, George Carew,
and James Winchester. They were all supportive and encouraging figures for me when I
was an undergraduate student and helped prepare me for the rigors of graduate studies in
philosophy.
3. I earned my PhD in philosophy in 2003 from the University of Memphis. Although I was the first Black woman to complete the PhD in Memphiss philosophy
department, it has to date produced five Black women philosophers including Anika
Mann (associate professor at Morgan State University), Donna-Dale Marcano (assistant
professor at Trinity College), Kris Sealy (assistant professor at Fairfield University), and
Kristie Dotson (assistant professor at Michigan Sate University). I am now an assistant
professor in the department of philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University where
ten Black women are currently in the PhD program in philosophy.
4. For example, by the time I started my first tenure-track job, two Black women
philosophy professors I met as a graduate student (one tenured and one not yet tenured)
left the discipline and the academy altogether. Unfortunately, I have not been able to
locate either of them to invite them to the annual CBWP conference. Another woman I
knew in a tenure-track job in a philosophy department often contemplated leaving. In
conversations I often tried to focus on the positive and important reasons why she
should stay. Also, a graduate student made it to the point of ABD (all but dissertation)
when she decided the program she was in had such an unsupportive and even harmful
culture that it was not worth finishing. Fortunately these latter two cases ended on a
more positive note than the first two. After attending the inaugural conference, the
graduate student completed and successfully defended her dissertation. The junior faculty member remained in her department and earned tenure.
5. Workshop facilitators included philosophers Jacqueline Scott, Ronald Sunstrom, Kelly Oliver, and Jose Medina as well as faculty from other disciplines like
Hortense Spillers and Cheryl Wall (both in English departments).
6. These students are Nathalie Nya, Camisha Russell, Shaeeda Mensah, Janelle
Lattimore, Jameliah Shorter, Ayesha Abdulah, and Axelle Karera, Ronke Oke, Ethenia
Whye, and Lindsey Stewart.
7. Shannon Sullivan, Chris Long, Robert Bernasconi, Lenard Lawlor, Dennis
Schmidt, and Tiffani Johnson, MD, each facilitated workshops.
8. These falsely held origins of philosophy have been challenged by Robert Bernasconi in Bernasconi 1997, 21226. See also Bernasconi 2000, 191208.

REFERENCES
American Philosophical Association. 2010a. Data on the Profession: Ph.D.s in Philosophy
by Race/Gender/Ethnicity. http://www.apaonline.org/profession/phdgre.aspx (accessed October 26, 2010).

Kathryn T. Gines

437

. 2010b. Data on the Profession: Selected Demographic Information on Philosophy

Ph.D.s, 1995. http://www.apaonline.org/profession/selected.aspx (accessed October 26, 2010).
Bernasconi, Robert. 1997. Philosophys paradoxical parochialism: The reinvention of
philosophy as Greek. In Cultural readings of imperialism: Edward Said and the gravity
of history, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, Benita Parry, and Judith Squires. London:
Lawrence and Wishart.
. 2000. Krimskrams: Hegel and the current controversy about the beginning of
western philosophy. In Interrogating the tradition: Hermaneutics and the history of philosophy, ed. Charles Scott and John Sallis. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Hunter, Janine. 2007. Now is the time. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, November 15.
http://diverseeducation.com/article/10148/ (accessed October 26, 2010).
Romano, Carlin. 2007. Black women philosophers ponder the price of the ticket. The
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 23, Section B, B9.
. 2007b. A challenge to philosophy. The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 24, Section
F, F1, F6.
Wilson, Robin. 2007. Black women seek a role in philosophy. The Chronicle of Higher
Education, September 28, Diversity in Academe 54 (5): 4.

Copyright of Hypatia is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users
may print, download, or email articles for individual use.