About Betty Stoneman

This blog was originally created in order to fulfill an e-portfolio requirement for undergraduate graduation. At the time, I never really intended it to be anything other than a hoop to jump through for getting my degree. However, I have continued to add essays to the blog throughout my academic career, and then I eventually started adding other written works. At the point I no longer feel like adding pieces, I will stop, and this blog will just inhabit a minuscule and untraveled electronic landscape in the vast universe of the internet. Until then, this blog contains a variety of written works that by no means ought to be taken to be representative of who I am, whatever that is. It is just a blog that tries to work through thought, in all of its multifaceted forms and in all of its messiness. The reader will note that very many of the posts are from when I was an undergraduate, and as such represent an undergraduate’s attempts at testing out and exploring new ideas and ways of expressing those ideas. Much of what I am doing now is still in this vein of testing and exploration, and I can only hope that it has become more refined. I am not concerned with and do not dare to claim absolute knowledge. I am concerned with wisdom as it relates to living well. I am concerned with what it means to live a good life; a life of flourishing, a moral and just life, and a meaningful life. I offer here only perspectives in an attempt to work through these complicated questions.

Betty Jean Stoneman

I. Personal Information

Emory University – Dept. of Philosophy – 561 S. Kilgo Circle – Atlanta, GA 30322

betty.jean.stoneman@emory.edu

II. Areas of Research

AOS: Social and Political Philosophy, Normative and Applied Ethics, French Existentialism

AOC: 19^th and 20^th Century Continental, Feminist Theory

III. Education

Emory University: PhD Expected 2022 w/ a Certificate in Women and Gender Studies

Dissertation: Ambiguity, Freedom, and Civil Disobedience: A Beauvoirian Account of Civil Disobedience

Committee: John Lysaker (chair), Noëlle McAfee, Dilek Huseyinzadegan, Michael Sullivan, Kimberley Brownlee, Shannon Mussett

Abstract: My aim for this dissertation, broadly, is to provide a normative account of civil disobedience that clarifies a range of particular acts, explains what justifies them, and provides a general guideline to determine the justifiability of analogous future acts. There are two aims within liberal democratic societies: 1) the protection of individual liberties, and 2) the establishment of an individual obligation to the political community. I take seriously the need for democratic societies to navigate between these two, oftentimes conflicting, poles of socio-political existence. I argue Beauvoir’s tripartite conception of freedom as ontological, situational, and relational better serves to navigate between these two poles democratic socio-political existence. For Beauvoir, freedom is a continuous activity of creating and giving meaning to the world through pursuing one’s chosen projects. One’s projects can either 1) be forced onto others, 2) fall uselessly into oblivion, or 3) be taken up and furthered through the free acts of others. Only the third option allows for the continuity of freedom. For her, there is no separation between the moral and the political, and what is moral is the furtherance of freedom. Moreover, as freedom can be hindered or promoted based on the historical socio-political situation, justification for acts of civil disobedience would be context-dependent based on the circumstances of that situation. Understood in this way, only acts which promote the furtherance of freedom as a relational practice would be justified, and one would have an obligation, depending on the circumstances, to perform acts of civil disobedience for the sake of securing others’ freedom.

Emory University: MA Spring 2019, ABD Spring 2019

Utah Valley University: BA Philosophy, summa cum laude, 2012 – 2015 – Minors: Ethics, Peace and Justice Studies

Salt Lake CC: AS General Studies, High Honors, 2008 – 2012

IV. Teaching Experience

Instructor:

Intro to Philosophy, Emory University (Fall 2020)

Intro to Business Ethics, Emory University (Summer 2020)

Intro to Logic, Emory University (Spring 2019)

Co-Instructor:

Philosophy of Love and Friendship, Emory University (Spring 2018)

Teaching Assistant/Grader:

Historical Methodologies, Emory University (Fall 2019)

19^th and 20^th Century Philosophy, Emory University (Fall 2017)

Introduction to Sociology, Utah Valley University (Fall 2016)

Ethics and Values, Utah Valley University (Fall 2014 – Spring 2016)

Ethics of Human and Animal Relationships, Utah Valley University (Fall 2015)

V. Publications       

Juried Articles:

“Sartre’s Imaginary and the Problem of Whiteness.” Philosophy & Social Criticism (forthcoming)

“The Dichotomy of Sight vs. Touch: The Harm of the Primacy of Sight for Empathy.” Sloth: A Journal of Emerging Voices in Human-Animal Studies 2 (Winter 2016)

“Ideological Domination: Deconstructing the Paradox of the American Dream and the Working Class Promise.” Stance 7 (2014)

Blog Articles:

“Catastrophizing in the Age of COVID: Social Structures of Care in Response to Apocalyptic Losses of Control and Social Isolation,” Blog of the APA: Covid Chronicles (October 19, 2020)

VI. Presentations

Juried Presentations:

“Navigating the Ambiguity of Existing as an Individual and as a Member of Society: Simone de Beauvoir and Civil Disobedience,” Georgia Philosophical Society (Fall 2020)

“Between Individual Freedom of Conscience and Obligations to the Political Community: Civil Disobedience as a Practice of Ongoing Dialogic Activity,” Women in Philosophy Inclusive Online Philosophy Workshop, Purdue University (Summer 2020)

“Beauvoir and King on Civil Disobedience,” Simone de Beauvoir Society, John Carroll University (Spring 2020) *conference cancelled due to Coronavirus

“Beauvoir and Wright in Dialogue: Coalesced Freedom in Situations of Oppression,” Diverse Lineages/North American Sartre Society, George Washington University (Summer 2019)

“What We Can Learn from Sartre’s Challenge to White Supremacy in Black Orpheus,” Southwest Seminar in Continental Philosophy, Utah Valley University (Summer 2019)

“A Re-reading of Sartre’s Challenge to White Supremacy: White Double Consciousness, the Imaginary, and Freedom,” North American Sartre Society, University of Mary Washington (Fall 2018)

“The Imaginary Gaze: A Re-Reading of Sartre’s Challenge to White Supremacy,” UK Sartre Society, Maison Française d’Oxford (Summer 2018)

“Political Obligation and Civil Disobedience in Aristotle by way of Justice and Friendship,” Loyola University Philosophy Graduate Student Conference, Loyola University (Fall 2017)

“Phenomenal Empathic Touch: An Alternative to the Primacy of Rationalist Sight,” Undergraduate Women in Philosophy Conference, San Diego State University (Fall 2014)

“A Marxist Critique of the Individual, Self-Interested, Wealth Maximizer,” University of Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, University of Puget Sound (Fall 2014)

“Response to Cheyney Ryan: The Visionary and the Pragmatic,” Building Peace in the 21^st Century: Global Ethical Dialogues, University of Utah (Spring 2014)

“Radicalesbians and Nietzsche: ‘Slave Morality’ and the Uberfrau,” Intermountain West Student Philosophy Conference, University of Utah (Spring 2014)

“Failures of a Developed Country,” J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice, Utah Valley University (Spring 2014)

“Kantian Vegetarianism: From Pyrrhonian Skepticism to Justification for Belief,” Utah Valley University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference, Utah Valley University (Fall 2013)

Community Presentations:

“Justifying Violent Oppression,” Feminist Majority SLC, Salt Lake Community College (Spring 2016)

Participation in Seminars and Consortiums:

Sawyer Seminar: New Scholarship on the Affects, Emory University (Fall 2016 – Spring 2017)

Oxford Human Rights Consortium, Oxford University (Spring 2015)

Nietzsche and the Moral Problems of Nihilism, Salt Lake Community College (Spring 2014)

VII. Honors and Recognitions

Outstanding Graduate of the Philosophy Department (Utah Valley University, 2015)

Phi Theta Kappa (Salt Lake Community College 2010 -2012, Utah Valley University 2012 – 2015)

Dean’s Merit Scholarship (Utah Valley University Fall 2014 – Spring 2015)

VIII. Departmental, College, and University Activities

Utah Valley University:

Guest Editor, JustPeace: A Journal of Creativity and Multivocality (Fall 2015)

Peace and Justice Studies Club (Fall 2014 – Spring 2015)

Judge for Utah High School Ethics Bowl (Fall 2013, Spring 2015)

Philosophy Club (Fall 2014)

Internship for Peace and Justice Studies (2013)

Salt Lake Community College:

Ethics Bowl (2011)

IX. Languages

Reading and Translation: French and German