Publicity

Duke Today, February 2025

Until recently, a philosophy doctoral student looking for a dissertation subject would likely choose from an impressive but limited group of historical thinkers. Kant. Descartes. Voltaire. All men. All white. A decade ago, a humanities project at Duke set out to elevate many of the lesser-known women of the field. Called Project Vox, it was a multidisciplinary attempt to discover and spotlight many female philosophers whose impact on the field was either buried over time or never properly recognized at all. It worked.

Duke Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, February 2025

Mary Purcell’s research focuses on Margaret Cavendish, a 17th-century writer and philosopher who published more than a dozen works at a time when women just didn’t do that sort of thing. Purcell was an undergraduate at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania when she first learned about Cavendish; through Duke’s Project Vox, she realized Cavendish was a substantial figure worthy of study. Eventually, Purcell ended up here at Duke, where she is now a philosophy Ph.D. student still studying Cavendish and others like her.

The Wall Street Journal, March 2023

“How to Think Like a Woman” comes as momentum to expand philosophy is growing, aided by online initiatives like Extending New Narratives and Project Vox. These resources show that neglecting women philosophers is simply bad scholarship.

Duke Graduate School, April 2019

“‘Faculty and professional researchers are usually able to read the Essay on Optics in the original French, but you can’t expect undergraduates to do that when you’re teaching on Du Châtelet,’ he [Bryce Gessell] said. ‘My main goal in translating the work was to make it available to undergraduate students, since it is an important part of Du Châtelet’s thinking as a scientist early in her career.'”

The Atlantic, July 2018

“‘Many people just assume we know who the great thinkers are—[the traditional philosophical canon] is not really in question,’ said Andrew Janiak, a professor of philosophy at Duke and the editor of Project Vox, a nonprofit devoted to diversifying the field of philosophy. But Janiak, whose work we wrote about in 2015, told me the canon is starting to diversify, slowly, in two key ways: by broadening the range of voices (especially beyond white men) on the longstanding questions of philosophy, and by broadening the scope of philosophical inquiry to new, more current questions.”

Duke Today, October 2017

“Gessell is a fourth-year doctoral student in philosophy at Duke tasked with translating a 73-page text written in the 1700s by Emilie du Chatelet.”

“‘It’s a wonderful example of a hidden voice,’ says Andrew Janiak, chair of Duke’s philosophy department. ‘She’s a person who really did contribute to scientific life. But she was left out of the history books.'”

The Lily, October 2017

Reprint of Washington Post article from October 2017. (Site no longer active.)

The Washington Post, October 2017

Andrew Janiak, “My own redemption came in the form of a digital humanities project here at Duke University, where I’ve taught philosophy for the past 15 years. In collaboration with an international team of scholars, a new website based at Duke, Project Vox, helps students and instructors reshape their teaching and research to include some of these forgotten voices.”

The Atlantic, May 2017

“Yet Cavendish turned to her own ends the communications technology of her day: As theDigital Cavendish Project and Project Vox have shown, she hired her own printers, most of them men, and managed distribution and publicity herself.”

The Atlantic, May 2015

“[Project Vox] features the forgotten voices of women philosophers, giving academics and students a rare opportunity to study and promote their work.”

London Times, May 2015

“Between the trouncing of Socrates by Diotima of Mantinea in the fourth century BC and the primordial feminism of Mary Wollstonecraft two millennia later, a great mantle of silence hangs over the ideas of female philosophers. . .[Project Vox] intends to tear that veil in two.”

Times Higher Education Supplement, April 2015

“Project Vox seeks not only to restore [female philosophers] to their rightful place, but also to elevate them to role model status.”

The Washington Post, April 2015

“The stereotypical figure in [philosophy’s] history: Sage with beard. . . two professors from Duke and Columbia universities argue that it’s time for philosophy to reckon with its own gender problem.”

Feministing, March 2015

“An impressive and much-needed project that seems like it could make some real progress in transforming the dude-dominated discipline.”

Feminist History of Philosophy, March 2015

“[Project Vox’s] purpose is to gather and publicise material on early women philosophers, and ultimately to change the narrative of the history of philosophy so that it includes them. . .The very useful Teaching tab offers general advice on how to include texts by women in early modern courses.”