This semester, Project Vox reached a wonderful milestone: 100,000 unique users have now visited our site! As a small project focused on team mentorship and training in academic research, 100,000 unduplicated visitors to the Project Vox website is a number well worth celebrating. These analytics also demonstrate the importance and reach of open-access scholarship. We are grateful for the support of Duke University Libraries, Duke’s Bass Connections, the Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Philosophy Department, and a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (PI: Lisa Shapiro in Vancouver). We would especially like to thank the 47 team members who have worked on this project since 2014.
Project Vox is an open-source, peer-reviewed resource that seeks to highlight philosophical works from marginalized individuals traditionally excluded from the philosophical canon. On the Project Vox team, we define marginalized voices as those not included in the European male-centric canon, which excluded writers on the basis of gender, class, race, and geography. Although these marginalized voices were often well regarded in their time, through historiographical and institutional efforts their contributions were obscured from philosophical study. Our project, therefore, is to offer an accurate historical record of the philosophical ideas and people throughout history. Project Vox began with a focus on early modern women. However, the year 2021 marked a shift, as the philosophers newly featured on Vox lived outside of Europe (Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz) and beyond the early modern period (Lady Mary Shepherd). We are committed to continuing to expand and challenge the history of philosophy by promoting inclusivity and diversity.
Project Vox pursues re-integrating these marginalized voices through three primary goals. First, it seeks to provide students at all levels with the materials they need to begin exploring the rich philosophical ideas of individuals excluded from the canon. Second, it aims to provide teachers with the material they need to incorporate these figures into their courses. Third and finally, it aims to help transform our current conception of the canon.
To complete this work, Project Vox employs a team of faculty, librarians, staff, graduate students, and undergraduates. We have students in all areas of our work, as our team prides itself on mentorship to and among students. A methodology of collaboration and mentorship means that our project does not produce scholarly work as quickly as other digital humanities projects might. However, this slower pace means that we can train undergraduates and graduate students in aspects of digital publishing, humanities research methods, information analysis and interpretation, archival research, and public writing and communications.
When the team was founded in 2014, we initially envisioned a project that relied on the human resources specifically at Duke. The first group of Western and early modern women philosophers featured on our site—Mary Astell, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Emilie Du Châtelet, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Damaris Masham, and Anna Maria Van Schurman—represented the expertise available on our team from 2014–2020. Through this process of highlighting women philosophers, we gained a greater awareness of the intersectional impacts of wealth, race, and gender identity on the availability and preservation of historical materials; we are now digging deeper as we recognize the potential for overlooking other marginalized voices. A global partnership and a philosophical network of fellow scholars offer us more collaboration in uncovering these overlooked philosophers and challenging the discipline of philosophy to re-examine its canon. Most importantly, we hope to publish scholarship and blog posts that encourage this philosophical community to recognize voices historically oppressed and marginalized by race, gender, class, and geography.
This year, Project Vox’s twelve-person team is working to publish an entry on an Italian philosopher of the Renaissance period. The entry, collaboratively written by a graduate student in Art History, a postdoctoral fellow in Romance Studies, and an undergraduate, will be an interdisciplinary look at the written works of Tullia d’Aragona. The entry on Tullia will be enlivened with rare and exceptional images connected to Tullia scholarship, curated by another graduate student in Art History. As we grow in our interdisciplinary approaches, we hope our primary audience—students, scholars, and researchers interested in early modern philosophy—will grow with us. Our entries are rich in explorations of all aspects and genres of each philosophers’ writings, art, and music.
To keep up with current projects, please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and subscribe to our biannual newsletter.
