Challenging Dominant Discourses: Feminist Conversations Across Political Science and Political Theory

Feminist theory is an increasingly plural field, but it remains united by a commitment to challenging what passes for universal or impartial knowledge. This workshop seeks to map connections between feminist methods in political science and political theory in order to share resources for questioning dominant methods across the discipline of politics. We welcome papers that investigate feminist methods in a variety of approaches to politics, including democratic theory, international relations, quantitative measurement, environmental politics, public policy, and normative political philosophy. Submissions may be works-in-progress, finished papers, or even past work. Participants are encouraged to read their own work through the lens of the question “how is this work feminist?” We hope the workshop will address questions such as: What are feminist methods? How do dominant methods marginalize women’s experience? How have technological advancements in quantitative methods reproduced gendered relations of power? How might feminist methods or practices open up interdisciplinary pathways between political science and political theory? How can methods in political science and political theory be intersectional? How does work on gender differ from feminist work? Must feminist projects deploy feminist methods? The workshop will be divided into four sessions: 1) International Relations, 2) Political Theory, 3) Governance and Policy, and 4) Quantitative Analysis. We hope that conference attendees will commit to the whole day in the interest of making connections across different aspects of Politics as a discipline. Each session will culminate in a keynote from a senior scholar in the subfield.