Hypatia (journal)

Background Hypatia has its roots in regional meetings of the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP), established in 1972. One of SWIP's earliest ideas was that it would set up a philosophy journal. , 2012SWIP decided in 1977 to set up an editorial board to plan the journal; the first board was put together by Ann Garry (Cal State LA) and Jacqueline Thomason (UMass Amherst). ''Women's Studies International Forum'' agreed to publish the new journal as an annual "piggy back" issue of its own, which it did for three years, Title, feminist philosophy The journal is named after Hypatia of Alexandria, a mathematician and philosopher who was murdered by a Christian mob in 415 CE. Al-Hibri said that the SWIP editorial board chose the name to reflect that women have "deep roots in philosophy". The first suggestion was Hypatia: A Journal of Philosophy and Feminism, rather than A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, because at the time it was unclear what feminist philosophy might be. In 2019, Hypatia's editors wrote, in "The Promise of Feminist Philosophy": ==Governance==

Hypatia is owned by a non-profit corporation, Hypatia Inc., Its purpose is "to foster feminist scholarship in philosophy and related fields, including through the publication of the academic journal Hypatia". As of October 2019, the board of directors consisted of Linda Martín Alcoff, Talia Mae Bettcher, Ann Garry, Helen Longino, Jacqueline Scott, and Nancy Tuana. In addition, the journal listed an international advisory board of 15 and an 11-strong board of associate editors. Instead of an editor-in-chief, four co-editors were named, Bonnie J. Mann, Erin McKenna, Camisha Russell, and Rocío Zambrana, and a managing editor, Sarah LaChance Adams. The managing editor of Hypatia Reviews Online was named as Bjørn Kristensen. Previous editors-in-chief were: == 2017 transracialism controversy ==

Dispute Hypatia became involved in a dispute in April 2017 that led to the online shaming of one of its authors, Rebecca Tuvel, an untenured assistant professor of philosophy at Rhodes College in Memphis. The episode pointed to a breakdown of communications within Hypatias editorial team, and to a rift within feminism and academic philosophy. The journal had published Tuvel's article, "In Defense of Transracialism", in its spring 2017 edition after the standard double-blind peer review. On 28 April the article was criticized on Facebook and Twitter, and Tuvel became the target of personal attacks. The following day an open letter, listing a member of Hypatias editorial board as its point of contact, urged that the article be retracted. By 2 May the letter had gathered 830 signatures. The journal distanced itself further from the article on 1 May when an Hypatia associate editor apologized on the journal's Facebook page for the article's publication, on behalf of "a majority of the Hypatia's Board of Associated Editors". The editor-in-chief, Sally Scholz, stood by the article, and the board of directors, led by Miriam Solomon, confirmed that it would not be retracted. According to a statement from the associate editors, whose role was to choose the next editor, the board of directors asked them, on 17 July, to resign or the journal's governance documents would be suspended, which would remove the associate editors' influence. Eight of the associate editors resigned. In their resignation statement, they wrote that the current controversy was "grounded in long-standing differences and tensions within the field." They argued that feminist philosophy had an ethical commitment to transform philosophy into "a discipline that honors the perspectives and welcomes the scholarly contributions of historically marginalized groups, including people of color, trans* people, disabled people, and queer people." The board appointed interim editors, and in November 2017 Sally Haslanger, Serene Khader, and Yannik Thiem were named as the governance task-force co-chairs. The five-person board of directors, including Solomon, was replaced in February 2018. == 2018 grievance studies affair ==

Hypatia was the subject of further controversy in 2018 when it accepted a hoax article for publication as part of the "grievance studies affair". The philosopher Peter Boghossian and others submitted 20 bogus papers to several humanities and social-sciences journals to provoke discussion about scholarly standards. Two papers were submitted to Hypatia. The paper argued that "satirical or ironic critique of social justice scholarship" is unethical but is acceptable in fields such as economics. Justin Weinberg, Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina, wrote that "if the citations [in the published paper] are legitimate and the descriptions of others' views are accurate ... the editors of Hypatia have nothing to be particularly ashamed of. ... It seems to me that only on the last page of the paper are there certain statements that could be interpreted as outrageous, but they are so vague that a much more charitable alternative interpretation would be reasonable." == Revised governance structure ==

Following the 2018 transition, the governing bodies of Hypatia collaborated to produce a new governance document to facilitate open communication and procedural consistency in cases of conflict. The journal also now has two standing committees to consider issues of ethics, dispute resolution, and outreach. ==Abstracting and indexing==

Hypatia is abstracted and indexed in the following bibliographic databases: According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2017 impact factor of 0.712. == See also ==