GloPhi Fellows at the Libori Summer School 2026:
Women Philosophers and Global Culture

On 30 July 2026, GloPhi Fellows Namita Herzl, Abosede Ipadeola, and Rutte Andrade will present their research on women philosophers, foregrounding oral, narrative, embodied, and collective practices of knowledge production.

The Libori Summer School 2026: History of Women Philosophers and Scientists will bring together international scholars at Paderborn University from 27 to 31 July 2026. Within the session “Women Philosophers and Global Culture,” three GloPhi Fellows will examine forms of philosophical thought that have frequently been marginalized by text-centred and predominantly Western accounts of the discipline.

In “Philosophies of Women Beyond the Canon,” Namita Herzl considers oral philosophy, storytelling, communal dialogue, intergenerational wisdom, dance, contemplative practices, art, poetry, and music as modes through which women have produced and transmitted knowledge. Her contribution asks how recognizing these practices as philosophical can expose mechanisms of exclusion and bring neglected intellectual traditions into established histories of philosophy.

Abosede Ipadeola’s presentation, “African Storytelling as Philosophical/Feminist Practice,” approaches storytelling not simply as a means of communicating ideas, but as a significant method of philosophizing in Africa. By questioning rigid distinctions between philosophy and supposedly non-philosophical forms of expression, she presents African storytelling as a philosophically substantive and epistemically just practice that makes women’s contributions to African philosophical discourse more visible.

Rutte Andrade will present “African Women’s Agency and Epistemic Sovereignty: Philosophical Foundations of Batuku and Tina.” Drawing on Africana Womanism, she examines Batuku in Cape Verde and Tina in Guinea-Bissau as collective practices through which philosophical knowledge is produced, preserved, and transmitted. Her analysis foregrounds orality, corporeality, rhythm, and ancestral and embodied memory as foundations of African philosophical thought. It thereby highlights African women’s agency, positions Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau within the global history of philosophy, and explores the contribution of these traditions to epistemic sovereignty and the decolonization of knowledge.

Taken together, the three presentations invite a broader understanding of where philosophy is located, how it is practised, and whose intellectual work enters its histories. They challenge inherited assumptions about philosophical form while advancing current debates on canon formation, epistemic justice, decolonization, and intellectual sovereignty.

The timing carries particular significance: the session takes place on the eve of Pan-African Women’s Day, observed on 31 July. The date recalls the founding of the Pan-African Women’s Organisation in Dar es Salaam in 1962 and recognizes African women’s leadership in struggles for liberation, self-determination, and social justice. In this context, the fellows’ contributions affirm African women not only as subjects within the history of philosophy, but as agents in the critical production and transformation of philosophical knowledge.

Event Details

• Session: Women Philosophers and Global Culture
• Date: Thursday, 30 July 2026
• Venue: Room L3 204, L-Building, Paderborn University
• Format: In person and online
• 10:15–10:55: Namita Herzl, “Philosophies of Women Beyond the Canon”
• 14:00–14:40: Rutte Andrade, “African Women’s Agency and Epistemic Sovereignty: Philosophical Foundations of Batuku and Tina”
• 15:50–16:30: Abosede Ipadeola, “African Storytelling as Philosophical/Feminist Practice”

Further information: Session descriptions · Full programme

Please consult the official programme for any last-minute changes.

About the Presenters

Rutte Andrade is a professor at the University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB). She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in African Philosophy at the University of Ghana and holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil), as well as a master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Cape Verde. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the Higher Institute of Education (ISE), Cape Verde. She served as General Coordinator of the Africana Studies Center at UNILAB from 2023 to 2025 and is a member of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). In 2023, she received the Award for Excellence in Research and Social Impact at the Pan-African Humanitarian Summit Awards Gala.

Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola is a feminist African philosopher who has extensive experience of over ten years in teaching and research at the university level. She received her PhD from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 2014 with a dissertation on A Maternal Feminist Critique of John Locke’s Contractarian Egalitarianism and was a recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Her scholarly interests include African philosophy/Africana philosophy, feminist philosophy, philosophy of gender, philosophy of race, political philosophy, ethics, epistemology, and African studies (broadly construed). She is particularly interested in significantly contributing to the training of the next generation of philosophers and African/Africana scholars, who are adequately equipped to critically analyze and engage with issues of fundamental significance required for addressing perennial and contemporary political, moral, economic, existential, and epistemic challenges.

Namita Herzl is a philosopher and doctoral researcher at the University of Hildesheim and an associate member of GloPhi. Her research focuses on women in the history of philosophy, intercultural philosophy, philosophical practices, Indian philosophy, and Tibetan Buddhist thought. Her doctoral project, Renunciation as Philosophical Practice: The Path of Sulabhā and Yeshe Tsogyal, examines ascetic and liberatory practices as forms of philosophical knowledge. She edited Women Beyond the Canon: Philosophies and Feminisms (2025) and has published on epistemic marginalization, oral philosophical traditions, and women thinkers beyond the established canon.