School of Social and Political Science

Description

Sponsored by the International Relations and Gender & Politics Research Groups, and Critique.

Join us for a talk and discussion of Professor Owens’ new book Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, and weaving together personal, institutional, and intellectual narratives, Owens documents key moments and locations in the effort to forge international relations as a separate academic discipline in Britain. She finds that women’s ideas and influence were first marginalised and later devalued, ignored, and erased. Examining the roles played by some of the most important women thinkers in the field, including Margery Perham, Merze Tate, Eileen Power, Margaret Cleeve, Coral Bell, and Susan Strange, Owens traces the intellectual and institutional legacies of misogyny and racism. She argues that the creation of international relations was a highly gendered and racialised project that failed to understand plurality on a worldwide scale. Acknowledging this intellectual failure, and recovering the history of women in the field, points to possible sources for its renewal.

Bio: Patricia Owens is professor of international relations at Oxford University and a fellow of Somerville College. She is the author of Between War and Politics: International Relations and the Thought of Hannah Arendt and Economy of Force, and the co-editor of Women’s International Thought: A New History and Women’s International Thought: Toward a New Canon.