In this recorded video, speakers Dr. Noelle Leslie de la Cruz (De La Salle University, Philippines) and Dr. Tracy Llanera (University of Connecticut, United States) critique the masculinist and conservative academic culture of Filipino philosophy, as well as the racial and gendered academic cultures of the Global North. Both cultures have distinct but related problems, and Filipina philosophers are expected to navigate one or both in the course of their academic careers. The webinar aims to expose the general toxicities that inhabit these respective cultures and initiate the long-needed conversation to counter these harms.
Speakers and bionotes:
Dr. Noelle Leslie dela Cruz is Full Professor of Philosophy in De La Salle University (Manila), where she received her Ph.D. in Philosophy and her MFA in Creative Writing, specializing in poetry. Her poetry collection, Sisyphus on the Penrose Stairs: Meta-Reveries, published by Vagabond Press, won First Prize for Poetry in English at the 2017 Palanca Awards. She is lead author of the senior high core course textbook, Philosophy of the Human Person: Giving Meaning to Life, published by Oxford University Press. She also co-edited the anthology Feminista: Gender, Race, and Class in the Philippines, published by Anvil Press. She serves as editorial consultant and book review editor for Φιλοσοπηια: The International Journal of Philosophy. Her research and teaching areas include existential phenomenology, philosophy of literature, and feminist philosophy. She may contacted through her email address, noelle.delacruz@dlsu.edu.ph.
Dr. Tracy Llanera is Assistant Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut and Research Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame Australia. She is author of Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism (2020) and co-author of A Philosophical Defence of Nihilism (2021). Tracy works at the intersection of philosophy of religion, social and political philosophy, and pragmatism, specializing on the topics of nihilism, conversion, extremism, and the politics of language. Her writings have appeared in Philosophy and Social Criticism, Hypatia, International Journal of Philosophy of Religion, Journal of Philosophical Research, Philippine Sociological Review, and Contemporary Pragmatism. In 2017, her work was shortlisted for the Annette Baier Prize by the Australasian Association of Philosophy. Tracy will join the University of Connecticut as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Fall 2021.
Combatting Toxic Cultures in Academia