Kristin Waters

Areas of Expertise

Political Theory; Feminist Theory; Black Feminism

Email: kwaters1@brandeis.edu

Current Project

I am researching and writing “Concepts of Freedom and Equality in Women’s Intellectual Movements,”  focusing on race, class, and gender in  Euro-American theories of freedom and equality of the early modern period, and exploring the intellectual productions of women writers and activists in different streams of thought such as radical, moderate, liberal, and conservative. 

Biography

When Kristin compiled and wrote critical introductions for Enlightened Conversations: Women and Men Political Theorists, (Blackwell 2000), she challenged teachers and researchers to be more inclusive of race and gender. Her new book, Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds (University of Vermont Press, 2007), co-edited with Carol Conaway,  is the 2007 recipient of the Letitia Woods Brown Award of the Association of Black Women Scholars for Best Anthology of 2007.

Among her research associations, Kristin has undertaken work through the Department of External Studies at Oxford University, England, and been a Visiting Research Professor in the Clark University Women’s Studies Program. Among her publications are “(Re)turning to the Modern: Radical Feminism and the Postmodern Turn,” in Radically Speaking, edited by Diane Bell and Renate Klein, and “Women in Kantian Ethics: A Failure at Universality,” in Modern Engendering: Critical Feminist Readings in Modern Western Philosophy, edited by Bat-Ami Bar On.

She is a founding member of the Caribbean Philosophical Association, an organization dedicated to studying  people of the African diaspora. She has served as director of the Women’s Studies Program at Worcester State College, where she is currently the chair of the Philosophy Department.

Education

Ph.D., University of Connecticut

M.A., University of Connecticut

A.B., Bard College

Representative Publications

Waters, Kristin and Conaway, Carol (eds.) Speaking Their Minds: Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions.  Burlington: University of Vermont Press 2007.

Waters, Kristin (ed). Men and Women Political Theorists: Enlightened Conversations. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Inc., 2000.