Andrea Nye (born 1939) is a feminist philosopher and writer.[1][2] Nye is a Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater for the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department and an active member of the Women's Studies Department.[3] In 1992, Nye received the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater Award for Outstanding Research.[4]
Life and career
Andrea Nye was born on October 22, 1939, in Philadelphia to attorney Hamilton Connor and home-maker Florence Deans.[5] Nye received a B. A. in philosophy from Radcliffe College (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) in 1961 and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Oregon in 1977.[5][6][7] Nye has been affiliated with the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater for decades; first as an assistant professor from 1978 to 1985, then as an associate professor from 1985 to 1990, followed by a position as a professor of philosophy from 1990 to 2002.[5] Nye has been a professor emeritus for the philosophy and religious studies department since 2002.[5] Andrea Nye is also a member of the Liberal Studies Division at the Boston Conservatory teaching interdisciplinary courses in the Humanities.[8]
Nye's early work in philosophy of language included a thesis on private language and a monograph on the history of logic from a feminist perspective.[9][10] In subsequent work, Nye turned more specifically to issues related to gender in language, the place of women in the history of philosophy, and feminist theory.[11] Reviving the work of neglected or misinterpreted women thinkers was of special interest in later work,[1] including translations and commentary on the letters of Elisabeth of the Palatinate to René Descartes (The Princess and the Philosopher), the political thought of Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt, and Simone Weil (Philosophia), and Diotima's teaching on erotic desire in Plato's Symposium (hl)(Socrates and Diotima).[1]
Most recently, Nye's interests have turned to the environment, climate change, and the gap between ecological theorizing and environmental practice. In her most recent book Ecology on the ground and in the Clouds, she compares the life and thought of "inventor of nature" Alexander Humboldt to projects of conservation and sustainable farming in Argentina and Brazil initiated by his botanist travel companion Aimé Bonpland.[12]
— (1996). "Polity and Prudence:The Ethics of Elisabeth, Princess Palatine," in Hypatia's Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Philosophers McAlister, Linda Lopez, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press