The Association of Marquette University Women (AMUW) and Marquette’s Center for the Advancement of the Humanities announced the selection of the 2022-2023 AMUW Women’s Chair in Humanistic Studies. Dr. Mariana Ortega, associate professor of philosophy and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Pennsylvania State University, will join the Marquette Department of Philosophy in August.
Ortega is a leading theorist of Latina/x feminisms. Her work, including “In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the Self,” emphasizes the importance of lived experience and embodiment in human understandings of social identity. She is known for her commitment to mentoring of people of color, especially Latinx people, and for founding the Latina/x Feminisms Roundtable, which fosters intellectual exchange among Latina/x people both inside and outside of the academy.
As the AMUW Chair, Ortega will deliver the Eleanor H. Boheim Distinguished Lecture, teach philosophy and deliver the keynote address for the Midwest Society of Women in Philosophy conference.
“The Philosophy Department is thrilled to host Dr. Ortega,” Assistant Professor Desiree Valentine said. “We are looking forward to learning from and engaging with her during her time here.”
The chair is housed in Marquette’s Center for the Advancement of the Humanities. Drs. Alison Efford, Jane Peterson, Amanda Keeler, Melissa Ganz and Tara Daly served on the faculty chair selection committee.
The Chair in Humanistic Studies was endowed in 1963 through successful fundraising by AMUW members. The Boheim Lecture Series was established concurrently with a gift from Mary Boheim Finnigan, a friend of Marquette, in honor of her mother.
A group of alumnae formed the AMUW in 1938 to provide housing for women on campus. Since then, the organization has turned its focus to scholarships; annual awards to recognize outstanding graduating students, alumnae and female faculty members; and social, spiritual and educational events that bring women together.
