Call for Contributions: Feminist* Philosophies of Sexual Violence
Dear colleagues,
On 15 January 2027, the OZSW Feminist* Study Group will organise a day-long workshop on feminist* philosophies of sexual violence. The aim of this workshop is to create a safe and focused space to engage deeply with diverging feminist approaches to thinking through sexual violence inside and outside institutional settings such as the academy. We aim to bring together scholars working from diverse theoretical traditions in the Netherlands and Belgium and to create a supportive environment where we can think theory in relation to embodied and personal experiences. If you would like to contribute to this workshop, please send us a short motivation by 15 November 2026.
Unsafe workplace environments and sexual harassment and assault have come under increasing scrutiny in the past decade, following the rise of the #MeToo movement in 2017, subsequent media attention and reconstructions of unsafe work environments in the academic world and beyond, and recently the gruesome Pelicot case and Giselle Pelicot’s powerful call that “shame must change sides”. In the Netherlands, the past years have seen the politicisation of women’s safety in public spaces, both by the far-right weaponizing (white) women’s bodies in racist anti-migration discourse, and in a rising feminist movement that is sometimes implicated in, but also refuses such weaponisation.
Philosophy has been far from exempt from sexual violence itself. One example of this in the Netherlands has been Fleur Jongepier’s decision to leave academic philosophy in 2022, and her public denouncement of the university’s lack of action in relation to unsafety and sexual violence. In this, she made a similar move to Sara Ahmed, who resigned from her professorship at Goldsmiths (University of London) in 2016 in protest against the institution’s failure to deal with the problem of sexual harassment. Ahmed came to Rotterdam in 2024 to exchange tactics of refusal, protest and change with other ‘feminist killjoys’ inside and outside of the academy. It remains urgent to address cultures of unsafety within the academy. But it is equally important to think through the philosophical consequences of experiences of sexual assault and institutional failures to address such experiences.
This workshop brings various feminist* philosophies of sexual violence in conversation with each other, to collectively think through diverse experiences of sexual violence inside and outside the academy. Ahmed’s critical phenomenological perspective on complaint procedures in higher education institutions offers one conceptual route. Recent work in the field of epistemic injustice has also theorised how sexual violence can be characterised as a form of epistemic injustice: for instance, Sofie Avery’s recent doctoral dissertation Intersecting Injustices: Re-storying Sexual Harassment in Academia explores how re-narrating experiences of harassment can be forms of repair. What are the consequences of these diverging feminist philosophical approaches? What can they learn from each other and what are their limits? What promises of other modes of philosophy do they hold?
We specifically welcome contributions that think through personal experiences in close relation to institutional conditions; that ask how practices of theory and philosophy can themselves be implicated in perpetrating violence; and/or that look for innovative methodological (empirical-philosophical) approaches to protect and do justice to experiences of survivors.
Format and practical information
To ensure that we can engage with each other’s work extensively, the workshop will have limited space. We ask participants to circulate a short written contribution (around 1000 words) for the other participants to read beforehand to maximise time for interaction during the day.
To participate in the workshop, please send an expression of interest (~300 words including your motivation to participate in the workshop and a brief description of your intended contribution) to c.r.koekoek@utwente.nl by 15 November 2026. Please mention “Feminist* philosophies of sexual violence” indicated in the subject line.
The workshop is organized by Sophie van Balen and Catherine Koekoek and hosted at the University of Amsterdam with thanks to Veerle van Wijngaarden. Supported by the OZSW chamber Ethics and Practical Philosophy, we can cover participants’ travel costs (within NL/BE).