MSU Philosopher Marilyn Frye Wins Romanell-Phi Beta Kappa Professorship
Marilyn Frye, University Distinguished Professor of philosophy and associate dean of graduate studies in the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University, has been named Phi Beta Kappa’s Romanell Professor in Philosophy for 2007-08.
The professorship is presented to a philosophy scholar each year in recognition of distinguished achievement and the scholar’s past or potential contribution to public understanding of philosophy. Recipients receive a stipend of $7,500 and give a series of three special lectures open to the academic community and the general public.
Frye is recognized internationally for her work in the fields of feminist philosophy, theory, and the philosophy of language. She is the author of The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), considered a classic in the field, and Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism 1976-1992 (1992). Her recent work has addressed the topic of social categories.
“People reject ‘being labeled,’” Frye says, “and sometimes that’s more than justified. But humans make and need structured social environments, which means we are organized into kinds or categories; it can’t be avoided. Feminist, queer and anti-racist movements grapple with understanding and living within/against race and gender categories. We have urgent questions about what social categories are, what that has to do with what we are and how that is connected to morals and politics.”
Details of Frye’s lecture series, “Kinds of People: Ontology and Politics,” will be announced later.
“Marilyn Frye has long been noted for her ability to show how apparently gender-neutral conceptual structures bias our understanding of issues concerning gender,” says J.B. Schneewind, professor emeritus of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and a judge on the Romanell committee. “She is unequalled in her ability to suggest ways in which these structures might be altered to avoid their sexist implications, and to draw out the bearing of her suggestions on practical issues of gender inequality.”
“The Romanell Professorship is an honor that Professor Frye richly deserves,” says Richard Peterson, chairperson of the MSU Department of Philosophy. “It recognizes her both as one of the country’s leading philosophers and as a thinker who has been an important influence in the world beyond academic philosophy. Her work as a writer and teacher has made profound contributions both to feminist philosophy and to our understanding of human nature and power more generally.”
Frye, who received a PhD in philosophy from Cornell University in 1969, joined MSU in 1974 and was named University Distinguished Professor in 2003. She has been a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon, a senior fellow and Rockefeller humanist-in-residence at the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota and a fellow at the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. She was named Distinguished Woman Philosopher of the Year by the Society for Women in Philosophy in 2001.
The Romanell-Phi Beta Kappa Professorship in Philosophy is made possible by an endowment from Patrick and Edna Romanell. Patrick Romanell, a Phi Beta Kappa member from Brooklyn College, is retired H.Y. Benedict Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso.
Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. The Romanell-PBK Professorship is part of the society’s mission to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, to recognize academic excellence, and to foster freedom of thought and expression.
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