Jennifer Lynn Hudgens | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Jennifer Lynn Hudgens

Instructor (2012-present)

Teaching Assistant (2011-2012)

Areas of Interest:
Jennifer's philosophical interests center largely around late modern philosophy, especially Friedrich Nietzsche and ethics, but she is also studying race and gender related thought, particularly feminism. Her other philosophical interests include history of philosophy, 19th century continental philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of science.

Activity:

“RAH, RAH, Womp: Race and Gender in Heinlein’s Science Fiction” to be presented at the 7^th Annual Meeting of the Comics and Popular Arts Conference held August 2015 at DragonCon in Atlanta, GA.

Commentary on “A New Analysis of Mercy” by Kristofer Rhodes, Kentucky Philosophical Association’s 2014 Spring Meeting held April 2014 at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY.

“Marx and Nietzsche on Asceticism,” at University of Kentucky’s Whither Western Marxism? Conference held January 2013.

"A More Severe Morality: Nietzsche's Critique of Kant" at the 1st International Conference on Nietzsche and the Philosophical Tradition held October 2012 at Universidad Federal do Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Commentary on “Ambiguity, Urgency, Power: Intersex Management and the Limits of Sex Dimorphism" by Christopher Lucibella, University of Kentucky’s 15th Annual Graduate Student Conference held March 2012.

"Civil Rights versus Free Speech on the issue of Pornography" at the North American Society for Social Philosophy's annual conference held July 2011 at Marquette University.

“Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals,” Guest Lecture for Frank Schicketanz and Holly Stave’s Texts and Traditions III held December 2004 at Louisiana Scholar’s College, Natchitoches, LA.

Previous Positions Held:
Adjunct Faculty at Clayton State University, 2008-2010
Adjunct Faculty at Kennesaw State University, 2008-2009
Visiting Instructor at Georgia State Unversity, 2007-2008
Teaching Assistant and Instructor of Record in PHIL 1010, Georgia State University, 2006-2007
Research Assistant, Georgia State University, 2005-2006

Organizations:
Philosophy Graduate Student Association: Vice President (2013-2014), member since 2010
Graduate Student Congress: Appreciation Week Committee (Spring 2013), member since 2010

Contact Information

jenniferlhudgens@uky.edu

1222 Patterson Office Tower

1443 Patterson Office Tower

859-257-3517

8592577002

Education

Jennifer earned her undergraduate degree from the Louisiana Scholars' College at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. She received a BA in Liberal Arts, with a concentration in Humanities and Social Thought and minors in Philosophy and Classics in 2005. Following that, Jennifer attended Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, and completed her MA in Philosophy in 2007. Additionally, Jennifer has completed the Graduate Certificate Program in Gender and Women's Studies at University of Kentucky as of May 2012.

Research Interests

Late Modern Philosophy
especially Friedrich Nietzsche
Ethics
epistemology
feminism
Philosophy of Race
History of Philosophy
Science Fiction

Affiliations

Gender and Women's Studies
Philosophy
Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies

Availability

By appointment; see syllabus for office hours

Research

AREA OF SPECIALIZATION
Late Modern Philosophy, especially Nietzsche, Ethics, Epistemology

AREAS OF COMPETENCE
History of Philosophy, Gender and Women’s Studies, Science Fiction

DISSERTATION WORKING TITLE

Forget Not the Whip! Nietzsche, Perspectivism, and Feminism: A Non-Apologist Interpretation of Nietzsche’s Polemical Axiology

DISSERTATION ABSTRACT

The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist according to many feminists. In parallel, Nietzsche’s theory of value, perspectivism, is relativist according to many philosophers. However, I propose a counter-reading of both Nietzsche’s comments regarding women and his comments regarding perspective in which I interpret Nietzsche as neither misogynistic nor relativistic. I adopt a stance which is non-apologist, in that I do not merely wash my hands of Nietzsche’s apparently sexist remarks about women as Walter Kaufmann does, for example, but rather I demonstrate that Nietzsche is performing a polemical attack on a particular kind of naïve feminism which only seeks certain privileges for women in principle without determining whether those privileges are valuable for the empowerment of any actual women. I argue that Nietzsche’s perspectivism and his remarks about women are explicitly and inextricably intertwined because of his repeated and explicit connections between ideas of women and ideas of truth, and thus any reading of Nietzsche’s remarks about women must be tied to a reading of Nietzsche’s remarks about truth and other axiological judgments made from necessarily human perspectives.

Keywords: Nietzsche, feminism, perspectivism, axiology, epistemology, alethiology, ethics, value theory, sexism, racism, gender, standpoint theory, pragmatism, relativism, nihilism, misogyny, polemic, perspective, women, race, 19th century, philosophy

Graduate Training

Jennifer has received training in pedagogy from both Georgia State University and University of Kentucky.

Course Syllabi

PHI 315 Philosophy and Science Fiction

This syllabus is subject to change; see BlackBoard for most recent version.