As stated in the minutes of the 1999 SPEP business meeting, the year in which the committee was proposed, the aim of the Committee on Ethnic and Racial Diversity is to facilitate within SPEP the representation of philosophers who are African-American, Latino/a, Asian-American, and Native American. The Committee will assess and report on the status of these constituencies in Continental Philosophy, identify discriminatory practices, and make recommendations to the Executive Committee concerning ways in which full and meaningful equality of opportunity can be provided to all.

In addition, every year the Committee organizes a panel pertaining philosophical issues in light of Multi-cultural or non-Western philosophies/perspectives.

Please send comments/suggestions/questions/nominations to any of the current members.


Current members:

Donna-Dale Marcano, Trinity College (2004- )
Olufemi Taiwo, Seattle University (2005- )
Namita Goswami, DePaul University (2007- )

Previous Members:

Linda Martín Alcoff (2000-2001)
Eduardo Mendieta (2000-2002)
Lucius Outlaw (2000-2001)
Constance Mui (2002-2004)
Mariana Ortega (2002-2004)
Yoko Arisaka (2003-2005)
Alejandro Vallega (2004-2006),


In the October 2004 meeting the Committee is co-sponsoring
two panels on Continental Philosophy, Feminism, and Race
with the Committee on the Status of Women.

Panel 1: Friday, October 29, from 9:00 to 12:00
Chair: Constance Mui, Loyola University-New Orleans

"Sartre's Ethics of the Oppressed,"
Anika Mann, Morgan State University

"Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Race Relations: An American in Paris Reads Simone de Beauvoir's Day by Day,"
D. Rita Alfonso, Stony Brook University

"The Limits of Atomistic Ontology for a Lived Understanding of Race and Sex,"
Emily Lee, LeMoyne College


Panel 2: Friday, October 29, from 12:00 to 2:00
Chair: Kathryn Gines, University of Memphis

"Abjection: Film and the Constitutive Nature of Difference,"
Tina Chanter, DePaul University

"The Power of Social Construction: Continental Feminism Meets Race,"
Donna-Dale Marcano, LeMoyne College

"Being-in-the-World, das Man and the New Mestiza,"
Mariana Ortega, John Carroll University


Panel for the 2004 SPEP Meeting, Boston:
"U.S. Cultural/National Identity after 9/11"

"In Memory of a Colonial Identity: Questioning the New American
Identity", Donna-Dale Marcano, LeMoyne College
"Am I that Name? Minority Identity and the Construct of the 'American'", Paula Moya, Standford University
"Young America", Ronald Sundstrom, University of San Francisco


Previous Panels:

2001 "PostColonialism and the Self" (Eduardo Mendieta, Moderator; Mariana Ortega and Elizabeth Kassab, presenters)

2002 "Publishing Diversity and Publishing in Continental Philosophy: Meeting the Challenges of Diversifying the Book World" (Constance Mui, Moderator; Damon Zucca, Jeff Dean, Dee Mortensen, Speakers)


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