Faculty: Shay Welch, Ph.D.
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Assistant Professor
of Philosophy
Address:
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Cosby, Room 432
Phone: 404-270-5518
Fax: 404-270-5523
E-mail: swelch1@spelman.edu
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CV | Courses:
AOS: Social/Political Philosophy, Feminist Ethics
AOC: Ethical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Indian/Hindu Philosophy
Degree:
Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY
Program in Social, Political, Ethical, and Legal Philosophy
PhD in Philosophy
Certificate in Feminist Theory
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
MA in Philosophy
Women’s Studies Letter
University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL
BA in Philosophy
BA in Political Science
Current Research:
My research centers on developing a framework of social freedom- individual freedom in and through social interaction. Problems of gender and racial oppression are central to this analysis.
I argue that the proposed conditions for most accounts of freedom are analyzed through a specifically political lens and that for one to gain a full understanding of what freedom requires there must be a concomitant account of social freedom that examines how individuals interact with one another in simpler, everyday contexts.
Thus, I reconceive the traditional set of conditions for freedom in terms of sociality. I take oppression to be the foremost impediment to social freedom and so develop the conditions of social freedom from a non-ideal starting point and include normative requirements for each condition to prevent and overcome oppression in social interaction.
The moral values central to my analysis of this conception of freedom are: trust, friendship, cooperation, and commitment. My work in feminist philosophy focuses largely on the body and the ways in which oppression shapes individuals’ relations to it qua sex, beauty, and fitness. My work in race theory centers largely on mixed-raced identity- specifically Native American- and the problems for self-identification that arise from (political) socially constructed racial membership requirements.
