Aaaaaand it’s done! The last lecture of our lecture series was held. The PhilosopHER* lecture series was organised by the anti-discrimination working group, which consists of 4 students (me included) from philosophy and cultural sciences. It was supposed to be an introduction to feminist philosophy, an area incredibly underrepresented at our philosophy department. At the same time we also wanted to create a platform for FLINT philosophers which continue to be underrepresented in philosophy more generally.

Representation of FLINT people in philosophy and academia was one of the topics we discussed. We also got to listen and talk about diversity and language, the pluralisation of the philosophical canon, care work and embodied theories of womanhood.

The lecture series took place online via Zoom, with 50 to 100 people in the audience – I honestly don’t think that we could have reached these numbers if the lecture series would have taken place in person. From time to time we asked people to tell us in the chat from where they were joining us and we were happy to see that people from all over Germany joined us in our weekly lectures and discussions.

Of course, realising the PhilosopHER* lecture series required a huge amount of work. But it was totally worth it, not only in my opinion. Today we asked for feedback and people were glad about our format, voicing that they would miss it and hoping that it will continue in the future – which we cannot guarantee yet.

I think that digital lecture series are a great way to fill lacunas in a department’s curriculum. Preferably, students would not have to organise it all on their own (and in an ideal world feminist philosophy would not be underrepresented at philosophy departments in the first place) but hey: We did it nonetheless. I’m proud of us.