Colloquium: Andrea Pitts, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Biography:
Andrea J. Pitts is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Their research interests include social epistemology, critical philosophy of race, feminist theory, and Latin American and U.S. Latinx philosophy. Their publications appear in IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Radical Philosophy Review, and InterAmerican Journal of Philosophy. Andrea is also co-editor of Beyond Bergson: Examining Race and Colonialism through the Writings of Henri Bergson (SUNY Press 2019).
GLORIA E. ANZALDÚA, CRITICAL TRANS POLITICS, AND DECOLONIAL STRATEGIES:
Abstract
This presentation explores the relevance of Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s work in the context of critical transgender studies. Notably, Anzaldúa’s writings have been cited and utilized by transgender scholars as early as 1987, and her work continues to remain significant within contemporary research in the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies. Many transgender studies theorists focus on her work on mestizaje to analyze the constraints of the gender binary, however, few of these theorists have explored the implications of her articulation of mestizaje for questions of indigenous sovereignty, a topic on which she has received significant criticism. In this vein, this paper examines how critical transgender studies can build coalitional decolonial strategies and whether Anzaldúa’s theoretical contributions offer resources to aid in those endeavors.