Nancy C. M. Hartsock (1943–2015) was a professor of Political Science and Women Studies (now Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies) at the University of Washington from 1984 to 2009.

Personal life and education

Hartsock was born in 1943 in a Methodist lower-middle class family, in Ogden, Utah. She attended

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

. While there, Hartsock was involved in the Wellesley Civil Rights Group. This group provided tutoring in Roxbury and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts, as well as working with the Boston NAACP. After finishing college, Hartsock went to get her Masters Degree from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. There, she got involved with a community organization group called The Woodlawn Organization, which was started by activist

Saul Alinsky Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community activist and political theorist. His work through the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation helping poor communities organize to press demands upon landlords ...

. When Martin Luther King brought the Civil Rights movements north, Hartsock marched to help this movement. After this march, she then helped start a graduate student woman's caucus in Political Science. Hartsock received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1972. She was a practiced musician and prior to her dissertation, Hartsock built and played the harpsichord. Hartsock also expressed interest in equestrianism, food, travel and art.

Career

Hartsock was a

feminist philosopher Feminist philosophy is an approach to philosophy from a feminist perspective and also the employment of philosophical methods to feminist topics and questions. Feminist philosophy involves both reinterpreting philosophical texts and methods in ...

. She was known for her work in

feminist epistemology Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology (the study of knowledge) from a feminist standpoint. Overview Feminist epistemology emphasizes how important ethical and political values are in shaping epistemic practices, and interpreta ...

and

standpoint theory Standpoint theory, or standpoint epistemology, is a theory for analyzing inter-subjective discourses. Standpoint theory proposes that authority is rooted in individuals' personal knowledge and perspectives and the power that such authority exe ...

, especially the 1983

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

"''The Feminist Standpoint''", which also integrated

Melanie Klein Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested tha ...

's theories on

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

and the Oedipal crisis. Her standpoint theory derived from

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

, which claims that the

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...

has a distinctive perspective on

social relations A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...

and that only this perspective reveals the truth. She drew an analogy between the industrial labor of the proletariat and the domestic labor of women to show that women can also have a distinctive standpoint. ''The Feminist Standpoint Revisited and Other Essays'' was then published in 1998. Hartsock was the first woman to be hired by the University of Michigan, where she taught in the Political Science Department. After a 3 year period, she moved to Washington DC and took a course at IPS on feminist theory in 1973. She then took part in the Quest staff and was in the subscription department where she did writing and editing. Quest lasted for almost 10 years. Once she left Quest, she taught Political Science at Johns Hopkins. There she also helped take part in the effort to bring Woman's Studies to the University. Several years after, she moved to the University of Washington and learned that the Woman's Studies at Johns Hopkins was now a course. Later, she focused her attention on woman's labor. Specifically, in the political economic dynamics of globalization. Hartsock then retired in 2009. She served as President of the Western Political Science Association (1994–95), and was the Co-founder of the Center for Women & Democracy in Seattle, WA, Founding Director (1999-2000).

Death and legacy

In 1985, Hartsock was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer and lived for 30 more years. Hartsock died on March 19, 2015 in Seattle, Washington. Prior to her retirement in 2009 Hartsock established the Nancy C.M. Hartsock Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Feminist Theory. Students from any college, and from any department can apply.

Awards

* Mentor of Distinction Award from the American Political Science Association Women's Caucus (1993, won)

Selected bibliography

Books

* *

Chapters in books

* Hartsock, Nancy (February 28, 1983), Discovering Reality. "The feminist standpoint: developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism", in Harding, Sandra.pp. 283–310 * * Availabl
online
*

Sisterhood is Powerful ''Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement'' is a 1970 anthology of Feminism, feminist writings edited by Robin Morgan, a feminist poet and founding member of New York Radical Women. It is one of the f ...

. Short entry explaining the remarks that professors made about the Woman's Caucus in 1970

Journal articles

* ::Also available as: * ::Also available as: * ::See also:

References

External links

Nancy C.M. Hartsock Papers
- Pembroke Center Archives, Brown University {{DEFAULTSORT:Hartsock, Nancy 1943 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American philosophers Philosophers from Washington (state) American women philosophers Epistemologists Feminist philosophers Feminist studies scholars Marxist feminists Postmodern feminists American socialist feminists University of Washington faculty