People
Members
Sonja Riegler (she/they), Universität Wien
Flora Löffelmann (they/them), Universität Wien
Melanie Altanian (she/her), Universität Freiburg
Paul Giladi (he/him), SOAS University of London
Stephanie Deig (she/they), Universität Luzern
Merel Talbi, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Kelly Agra (she/her), University College Dublin, University of the Philippines Baguio
Hugo Mota (he/him), University of Oslo
Ruby Schofield (she/her), Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Maëlle Roussel (they/them)
Hilkje C. Hänel (she/her), Potsdam University
Karl Landström (he/him), Nottingham Trent University
Natalie Alana Ashton (she/her), Vrije University Amsterdam
Joy Twemlow (she/her), Durham University
Jasper Friedrich (he/him), University of Oxford
Kai feldheim (they/them), artist
Anna C. Zielinska, University of Lorraine, Nancy, France
Solmu Anttila (they/them), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Lilith Lee (she/her), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Irene Salzmann (she/they), Universität Wien
Florence Rochat (she/her)
Sebastian Schmidt (he/him), University of Zürich
Cara-Julie Kather (she/they)
Nora Kindermann (she/her), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Steering committee (2022–23)
Sonja Riegler (she/they), Universität Wien
Flora Löffelmann (they/them), Universität Wien
Melanie Altanian (she/her), Universität Freiburg
Stephanie Deig (she/they), Universität Luzern
Solmu Anttila (they/them), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Member bios
Sonja Riegler (she/they)
Sonja Riegler is a philosopher & PhD researcher at the University of Vienna, currently working at the intersection between critical feminist and political epistemology, critical race studies and philosophy of science. In her thesis, she seeks to formulate a new account of ignorance that specifies different societal and political functions, mechanisms, causes and effects of ignorance. Part of that project is a case study, that is, to lay bare the unrecounted and invisible history of labour migration to Austria. Sonja is member and student representative of the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy and was chair of UPsalon, an initiative to connect underrepresented groups in philosophy. Additionally, Sonja works as a freelance journalist for print and radio in the fields of cultural- and science communication.
Flora Löffelmann (they/them)
Flora Löffelmann is PhD candidate and researcher at the University of Vienna. They are working on the intersection of philosophy and gender studies. In their PhD Project, Flora combines theories from the fields of social epistemology, queer phenomenology and foucauldian genealogy to shed light on a specific form of epistemic oppression. Their case study is from the field of trans studies, and concerned with the ways in which binary notions of gender are culturally reproduced and upheld. They are a member of the Austrian Society for Gender Research (ÖGGF), the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy, and Intergender (International Consortium for Interdisciplinary Feminist Research Training).
Melanie Altanian (she/her)
Melanie Altanian is postdoctoral research associate and lecturer at the Professorship in Epistemology and Theory of Science at University College Freiburg, Universität Freiburg. Her areas of specialization are social and political epistemology, moral philosophy, and social philosophy. She currently works on issues of epistemic injustice, denialism and ignorance, and in particular, on finalizing her book publication on The Epistemic Injustice of Genocide Denialism for Routledge. Her most recent publication, “Rethinking the right to know and the case for restorative epistemic reparation,” appeared open access in the Journal of Social Philosophy.
Paul Giladi (he/him)
Paul Giladi is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at SOAS University of London (from 4th September 2023). He is also the co-director of the Naturalism, Modernity, and Civilization International Research Network. Giladi has published widely on Hegel, pragmatism, critical social theory, feminism, and contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. He is also the editor of Responses to Naturalism: Critical Perspectives from Idealism and Pragmatism (Routledge, 2019), Hegel and the Frankfurt School (Routledge, 2020), the co-editor of Epistemic Injustice and the Philosophy of Recognition (Routledge, 2022), and the co-editor of Fichte and Critical Theory (forthcoming 2025).
Stephanie Deig (she/they)
Stephanie Deig, MA is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at the University of Lucerne specializing in feminist political theory and critical political epistemology and writing a dissertation on the radical, transformative, and epistemic power of rights-claiming practices in transnational feminist movements. Since 2017, she is a co-founder and executive committee member of the Society for Women* in Philosophy Switzerland.
Kelly Agra (she/her)
Kelly is a Teaching Fellow (Autumn 2023) and Government of Ireland - Irish Research Council (IRC) Postgraduate Scholar, PhD candidate, at the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin; and an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Philippines Baguio (on study leave). Her work falls within the intersection of Critical Social Philosophy and Social Epistemology, focusing on decolonial and feminist critiques of knowledge and society in her development of her concept of “epistemic paralysis” and theory of “(mis)education”. She has published articles on resistance, epistemic injustice, the philosophy of Alain Badiou, and Japanese Philosophy among others, and is currently heading the research projects: The Philippine Condition: Threads of Critical, Decolonial, and Feminist Contentions and The WDP Handbook of Filipino Philosophy. She is affiliated with UCD MAP (Minorities and Philosophy), WDP (Women Doing Philosophy) Philippines, and TNH PhD (Transnational Humanities PhD) Network. She was the editor in chief of Perspectives: UCD Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy Volume 9 (Winter 2021), Special Issue in Social Philosophy.
Hugo Mota (he/him)
Hugo Mota is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Oslo. Currently working on political epistemology, philosophy of communication, argumentation theory, and philosophy of attention. Focuses on cases of structural racism in the Americas and Europe drawn from social anthropology and political history. My contribution is considering argumentative and non-argumentative ways to change intrinsically oppressive perspectives in light of recognition theory, standpoint theory, social movement theory, and peace studies. Since 2022, he is an executive committee member at the Argumentation Network of Americas, coordinator of the Oslo Mind, Epistemology, and Language Network, and permanent member of the interdisciplinary project “Dataphilo: gender and race in Brazil’s philosophy graduate studies”.
Ruby Schofield (she/her)
Ruby Schofield is a PhD candidate based at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, working at the intersection of philosophy and cultural studies. Her project aims to track and ameliorate the concept of empowerment, in a bid to say something about the tension in feminist philosophy and theory between recognising structural oppression and doing justice to the oppressed’s agency under conditions of patriarchy. Her research seeks to bring feminist philosophical work on choice, autonomy, and agency into dialogue with contemporary cultural analysis to provide a basis for understanding how dominant social narratives and the co-option of terms such as ‘empowerment’ can work against their original aims.
Hilkje C. Hänel (she/her)
Hilkje is an assistant professor/postdoc at Potsdam University. She works in political philosophy and epistemology, social and feminist philosophy, and applied ethics -- with a particular focus on the intersection of social and institutional injustices, epistemic oppression, recognition failures, and marginalized agency under ideological and oppressive social structures. Hilkje studied philosophy at Georg-August University Göttingen, University of Sheffield, Humboldt University of Berlin, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught philosophy and political theory classes at Humboldt University of Berlin, Freie University of Berlin, Potsdam University, Oldenburg University, and University of Oslo. She has held the Helene Lange visiting professorship at Oldenburg University and a DFG-Walter-Benjamin visiting researcher position at the department of philosophy as well as the Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs at San Diego State University. Hilkje is principal investigator of a DFG-research network on The Relation between Theories of Epistemic Injustice and Recognition Theory, an associate member of the Potsdam Center for Post-Kantian Philosophy, and of Ethics in Motion. Feminist Ethics and #MeToo (EMFEM) funded by the Icelandic Research Fund. She has published widely and is co-editor of Transforming Political Philosophy and fem.phil, the first German book series in feminist philosophy.
Natalie Alana Ashton (she/her)
Natalie is a postdoc researcher at Vrije University Amsterdam, and has previously worked at the University of Stirling, the University of Vienna, and did her PhD at the University of Edinburgh. She works on the political and social aspects of epistemology, specifically how oppression and power affect knowledge and political deliberation. She co-edited Social Epistemology & Relativism (Routledge, 2020) and is currently working on a co-authored monograph (Norms for the New Public Sphere, OUP) about political deliberation in the online sphere.
Jasper Friedrich (he/him)
Jasper Friedrich is a PhD candidate in political theory at the University of Oxford and a Teaching Associate at the Blavatnik School of Government. He works on Critical Theory, the methodology of normative theory, and on the politics of emotions and mental health. His doctoral thesis brings together these concerns by exploring the political epistemology of emotional states, like anger and depression, in relation to social critique and political resistance. A crucial part of this project is to bring Frankfurt School Critical Theory into contact with feminist epistemology and philosophy of emotion - and vice versa - in order to address their shared concern with how resistance and critique arises from experiences of oppression.
Solmu Anttila (they/them)
Solmu Anttila is a PhD candidate in Philosophy based at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. They are currently working on epistemic power, the political epistemology of attention, the political epistemology of Paulo Freire, the philosophy of Valentin Voloshinov, and the sociology of labour migration in higher education.
Irene Salzmann (she/her)
Irene is a PhD researcher in Philosophy at the University of Vienna, currently working in philosophy of history, political philosophy and history of ideas. In her thesis, she seeks to reconstruct and further develop a method after Walter Benjamin, “political characterology” and apply it on the Konservative Revolution. Irene is member of UPsalon and the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy. She also is the vice chair of the Print Magazine MALMOE.
Florence Rochat (she/her)
Florence Rochat is a MA student in philosophy at the University College Dublin. She is interested in political theory, ethics, and feminist epistemologies. Her MA dissertation is entitled “Listening to Laypeople: The Need for Laypeople’s Knowledge in the Academic and Policymaking Arenas – The Case of Sex Work” and aims at showcasing the importance of laypeople’s knowledge in order to produce ethical knowledge and policies and accurate epistemic claims. She is also interested in exploring the link between artistic practices and knowledge production.
Sebastian Schmidt (he/him)
I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Zurich Epistemology Group on Rationality (ZEGRa), a Zurich based group of epistemologists, led by Anne Meylan, who are interested in rationality, responsibility, and reasons at the intersection of theoretical and practical philosophy. I am also affiliated with the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (ACEPS) at the University of Johannesburg, led by Veli Mitova, who are concerned with epistemic decolonisation and other issues in applied epistemology. Before coming to Zurich, I received my PhD from FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. My own main research lies at the intersections of metaepistemology, normative epistemology, and applied epistemology. My book Responsibility for Rationality (forthcoming with Routledge in 2024) explores the foundations of an ethics of mind, which is concerned with the nature and significance of the norms that govern our attitudes.
Cara-Julie Kather (she/they)
Cara-Julie Kather is a PhD candidate at Leuphana University in the field of feminist and decolonial epistemologies. Her PhD work revolves around critical analysis of mathematics as a discipline and as a way of thinking.
Since 2019, she is involved in a variety of projects concerning sexual violence within academic and nonacademic spaces. The question of standards of credibility as a form of oppression is central to both her project-based work and her academic research.
Her writing aims to question existing narratives and modes of thought and to create new ones in midst of all the chaos that is marginalization. In this, her writing is not limited to traditional academic writing but also involves a book of personal essays ("Liebe, sagt er") and a short collection of poetry ("rotekörper").
Anna Klieber (they/them)
Anna is a lecturer and researcher at Cardiff University, with their work focussing primarily on political and social philosophy of language and epistemology. They are interested in the communicative and epistemic function and role of silence, and conceive of that role as a fundamentally political and social one. Their research addresses topics such as: silencing, dogwhistles, dissent and counter speech, epistemic corruption and epistemic oppression. They are involved with the Taskforce for Gender Minorities in Philosophy, primarily to organise events with and for the trans community in philosophy.
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