The Philosophical Gourmet Report, an influential and famous ranking of philosophy graduate programs based on surveys of pro philosophers, is known in some circles for its sometimes unfair or inane deliverances. Here's a good one:
My school, UB, is ranked in the 5th group (meaning rather respectable) of programs for feminist philosophy. I have no other explanation for this than confusion. Our feminist street cred? We have exactly one woman full professor, by specialty an aesthetician, who teaches a token class on de Beauvoir every so often. We have one other woman on the faculty. Neither she nor anyone else at UB works on anything you could mistake for feminism from a mile away.
On the other hand, my girlfriend's school, Michigan State, earned no ranking at all for feminism. This while their former chair (now a Dean, but still quite involved in the department) is a major and original light of feminist academe. Not to mention the big appetite for social philosophy and cross-cultural feminism they have there. No grad student in her right mind would come to UB to become a student of Carolyn Korsmeyer (with all due respect) qua feminist, but MSU, a smallish department, attracts a good handful.
Another reason to roll your eyes at this stuff, dear Integrands...
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