Book Reviews by Amarantha Groen
Papers by Amarantha Groen
Hypatia Reviews Online
Reviewed by Amarantha Groen, 2018 Amarantha Groen is currently teaching in the Humanities Departm... more Reviewed by Amarantha Groen, 2018 Amarantha Groen is currently teaching in the Humanities Department at Erasmus University College in Rotterdam. She teaches various courses in philosophy, and recently developed her own course in feminist philosophy, introducing a new area of study to the university's curriculum. She obtained her bachelor's degree in philosophy with a focus on feminist phenomenology and completed her research master's degree in gender and ethnicity studies at Utrecht University. She wrote her thesis on the feminist potential of wonder, and her research interests include feminist theories of the body, queer theory, critical theory, and new materialisms. Quote: "At its peak, wonder can foster the renewal of 'active, imaginative, emotionally engaged thinking,' which not only depends but thrives on the absence of certainty, on not-knowing." *** Genevieve Lloyd's latest work, Reclaiming Wonder: After the Sublime, which traces the philosophical history of wonder and its potential within contemporary contexts, may not come as a surprise to those familiar with her work. Throughout her oeuvre, Lloyd has demonstrated a profound, sustained, and meticulous passion for creative and political readings of the history of philosophy. Ever since her, by now, feminist classic, The Man of Reason-in which she carefully and provocatively traces the association of maleness with (shifting conceptions of) reason and rationality throughout the canon of Western philosophy and opens the rethinking of central concepts in philosophy and scientific discourse-she has engaged intensely with the history of philosophy. Reclaiming Wonder continues the affirmative reading that is typical of her approach, marked by a readiness to critically and creatively engage with thought, producing new debates and insights that can be put to work. Another defining characteristic of Lloyd's oeuvre, which returns in this new work, is her particular attention to, and expertise on, the work of Spinoza. The philosopher, who was until recently a largely overshadowed "undercurrent" figure (Lloyd has been among those who have actively brought him out of the historical shadows and into the present), helps her think through issues such as responsibility, freedom, difference, and diversity. Thus, Reclaiming Wonder can be read in line with the project of reading the history of philosophy critically yet affirmatively, and with Lloyd's longtime engagement with Spinoza's thought. Both threads return anew and are connected by way of an inquiry into the philosophical history of wonder. Reclaiming Wonder begins from the observation that philosophy, although having once regarded wonder as a state of the mind defining the distinctive intellectual activity of philosophy, gives hardly any serious thought to the concept in contemporary discourse. Lloyd observes that wonder is at present largely relegated to the realm of the escapist fantastic, rather than to the realm of "serious intellectual engagement with reality" (2) as was the case for the ancient philosopher. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, its ancient connections with knowledge were
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Book Reviews by Amarantha Groen
Papers by Amarantha Groen
Book Chapters by Amarantha Groen