Fair Play For Whom? A Social Imaginaries Analysis of TERF Propaganda
\nLouise Richardson-Self \;(University of Tasmania)
Abstract: \;Veronica Ivy argues that TERFs are propagandists and that well-intentioned\, relatively uninformed cis people are vulnerable to this propaganda. Taking Fair Play For Women as a case study\, I argue that such propaganda succeeds when it triggers\, via the images of &lsquo\;sex&rsquo\; and &lsquo\;science&rsquo\;\, a hermeneutical shortcut that disposes deferential trust in TERFs. This is significant because TERF logics are co-extensive with right-wing extremist logics. TERF propaganda may thus solicit more extremist attitudes among otherwise well-intentioned cis people while worsening trans oppression. A social imaginaries analysis reveals why highlighting the falsehood of such propaganda is insufficient for eliminating its risks.
\nBio: \;Louise Richardson-Self is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Gender &\; Diversity at the University of Tasmania. She was an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow (2019-2025) researching the social imaginaries that sustain sexism and misogyny online\, and was part of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project team (2020-2024) researching LGBTQ+ non-discrimination and religious freedom. In 2019 she was awarded the Australasian Association of Philosophy&rsquo\;s Annette Baier prize for her article &lsquo\;Offending White Men.&rsquo\; Her research projects all focus on contemporary issues of social justice and are unified through the theoretical frameworks of social imaginaries\, embodiment\, and intersectional feminist theory.
\nZoom Link: \;https://deakin.zoom.us/j/81187365426?pwd=N3aaK9cRYauBbrc7nvTXcQAQoXcECK.1&\;from=addon
\nMeeting ID: 811 8736 5426 \;// Password: \;13679090
\nThis meeting is at 2:30pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) 18 November 2026 [03:30am UTC 18 November 2026]
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20261026T133301Z DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20270302T123000 DTEND;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20270302T140000 SUMMARY:Being-for-War: Freedom and the Fragility of the Shared World UID:20261026T160853Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@philevents-web-8d97778f4-7v9xz TZID:Australia/Melbourne LOCATION:221 Burwood Highway\, Melbourne\, Australia\, 3125 DESCRIPTION:Being-for-War: Freedom and the Fragility of the Shared World
\nLior Levy \;(University of Melbourne)
Abstract: \;What does war reveal about existential freedom? Sartre&rsquo\;s philosophy is often read as an account of radical freedom: consciousness is never reducible to its situation\, and human beings remain responsible for what they make of the conditions in which they find themselves. Yet war presents a distinctive challenge to this conception of freedom. It does not simply impose constraints upon an otherwise intact freedom\; it transforms the world in which possibilities can appear\, alter the meanings of things and actions\, and reorganise the relations through which freedom is exercised. What war threatens\, then\, is not only the subject&rsquo\;s freedom\, but the shared world that makes meaningful agency possible in the first place.
\nI develop the concept of "being-for-war" to describe a mode of existence in which subjects are implicated in a world they neither wholly choose nor simply passively endure. In &ldquo\;being-for-war&rdquo\; freedom discloses not only the possibility of world-creation\, but also the possibility of its unmaking. Drawing primarily on Sartre&rsquo\;s Being and Nothingness and War Diaries\, I examine the ethical and political implications of being-for-war. War makes visible a feature of freedom that remains less apparent in conditions of relative stability: freedom is fragile because the world of possibilities within which we act is shared\, contingent\, and vulnerable to collective destruction. An ethics of being-for-war must therefore attend not only to what individuals choose\, but to how their actions sustain\, reproduce\, transform\, or foreclose the possibilities of a shared world.
\nBio: \;Lior Levy is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on existentialism\, phenomenology\, feminist philosophy\, and aesthetics. She is the author of articles on Sartre\, Beauvoir\, feminist phenomenology\, and co-editor (with Massimo Leone) of Masks and Faces (Routledge\, 2026).
\nZoom Link: \;https://deakin.zoom.us/j/87951496688?pwd=ukkb27R7x3J57huab6yLfVYlfB64gl.1
\nMeeting ID: \;879 5149 6688 \;// Password: \;74986849
\nThis meeting is at 2:30pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) 2 March 2027 [03:30am UTC 2 March 2027]
ORGANIZER: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR