Emily S. Lee is Professor of Philosophy at California State University at Fullerton. Her research interests include feminist philosophy, philosophy of race and phenomenology, especially the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. She is editor of Living Alterities: Phenomenology, Embodiment, and Race (SUNY Press, 2014).

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: A Phenomenology of Perception: Racism as Bias and Multiplicitous Subjects

Chapter Two: The Phenomenological Structure of Experience: The Ambiguity of Intersectionality as a Group Identity

Chapter Three: The Body Movement of Historico-Racial-Sexual Schemas

Chapter Four: Three Criticisms of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology

Chapter Five: In the Face of Indifference: The Phenomenological Structure of Identity-in-Difference

Conclusion

Bibliography

About the Author

A Phenomenology for Women of Color: Merleau-Ponty and Identity-in-Difference explores how phenomenology can help philosophy of race explain the persistence of race as a key indicator of social standing. Engaging with the work of women of color to think more deeply about our racial and gendered structural relations with one another, Emily S. Lee argues that phenomenology is helpful in two ways: (1) race, as a social construct, is phenomenal and (2) Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology centers on embodiment and therefore applies to both feminist and racial concerns. Lee defines the phenomenon of race as a structure that is open-ended, is developed creatively, and mediates one's situatedness in the world and relations with others. Drawing on ideas from Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, this book depicts the dynamic and creative expressions of race and racism to address the ambiguities within the experiences of race and sex and, ultimately, to conceptualize the identity group "women of color."