Sandrine Bèrges
British Academy Global Professor
Profile
Biography
I received my PhD in philosophy from Leeds in 2000. I started work at the University of Bilkent, Ankara, in September 2000. From September 2024 to August 2028, I will be on leave from Bilkent, working in York as a British Academy Global Professor. I will be working on a new project, investigating the socio-political philosophical debates on the abolition of slavery that took place in France and England at the end of the eighteenth century.
Research
Overview
I work on the feminist history of philosophy, with an emphasis on social and political thought. Recent projects include a book on the women philosophers of the French Revolution, Liberty in their Names, a forthcoming monograph on domesticity, which focuses on the works of women philosophers in history. I also write about specific women philosophers: Mary Wollstonecraft, Olympe de Gouges and Sophie de Grouchy.
Projects
Finding Diversity in Enlightenment's Philosophy's Attitude to Abolitionism
My current British Academy funded project falls within the field of history of philosophy and focuses on the abolitionist debates of the early modern and enlightenment periods in France and Britain. I will recover the marginalized voices that constituted an important part of those debates: Black men and women, white women, and members of religious minorities. The recovery of voices in the history of philosophy has so far focused mostly on white women philosophers whose work was in the areas of metaphysics and epistemology. My own distinctive contribution to this recovery project will be to recover voices by Black philosophers and white women philosophers as well as thinkers from religious minorities in political philosophy. What I will recover is a philosophical dialogue that was fed by a rich variety of voices, many of which were marginalized at the time and still are today.
External activities
Overview
Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy
I am a collaborator for this Project which recently received a CAD2.78million SSHRC grant for the purpose of conducting research into important philosophical works that have been neglected, in particular works by women
This project, run by Andrew Janiak at Duke, aims to gather resources and scholarship for the expansion and development of work on Early Modern women philosophers. I serve as an advisor for this project.
Society for Women in Philosophy, Turkey.
I am co-founder of this new society with Saniye Vatansever. We have set up a mentorship program and annual conferences, from October 2018.
Blogging
Feminist History of Philosophy Blog
I manage a blog that diffuses information about research on women in the History of Philosophy. In June 2020 I started a series on Africana Women Philosophers
The Home: A Philosophical Project
In this blog I recorder my research on women philosophers’ thoughts on domesticity.
Liberty in their Names!
Here I was live blogging the research for my new monograph on French Revolutionary women philosophers.
Hesperus is Phosphorus
I am part of the editors’ team for a group blog for analytic philosophy in Turkey.
