Professor Clare Chambers: Developments in Feminist Philosophy

It’s 100 years since the first Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures were held in 1925. To mark the centenary, the 2025/6 London Lecture Series focuses on the theme Philosophy in Retrospect and in Prospect. Distinguished philosophers have been invited to reflect on where their area of the discipline has got to over the last hundred years, and/or where it might go – or should go – over the next hundred.

All lectures include a post-lecture "in conversation" session with our Academic Director Edward Harcourt, followed by audience Q&A.

Over the last 100 years the condition of women in society has changed and so has feminist philosophy. Professor Clare Chambers will reflect on developments in feminist philosophy, including changing perspectives on essentialism, the family, and the body.

Clare Chambers is Professor of Political Philosophy and a Fellow of Jesus College, University of Cambridge. She is the prize-winning author of books including Freedom & Equality: Essays in Liberalism and Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2024); Intact: A Defence of the Unmodified Body (Penguin, 2022); Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State (Oxford University Press, 2017); Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (Penn State University Press, 2008); and Teach Yourself Political Philosophy: A Complete Introduction (with Phil Parvin, Hodder, 2012). She has also written numerous articles and chapters on feminist and liberal political philosophy and, together with Brian D. Earp and Lori Watson, edited the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality (Routledge, 2022).

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