Estelle Ferrarese
Estelle Ferrarese
Estelle Ferrarese is a French feminist philosopher. She is Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the University of Picardy Jules Verne[1] and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.[2] She was director of the Institut du genre from 2020 to 2024.[3] Her work aims to renew, through a feminist reading, the [Theory] of the Frankfurt School.[4]
Biography
She received her doctorate with a dissertation on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere. Subsequently, with research on vulnerability, she obtained her Habilitation to Supervise Research in philosophy.
She has been a Visiting Professor at [New School for Social Research], and at the Goethe University Frankfurt. She was recipient of the [von Humboldt-Stiftung] at the Humboldt University of Berlin.[5] From 2014 to 2016, she was a researcher in philosophy at the Centre Marc Bloch.[6]
In her work on forms of life (Lebensformen)[7], she re-interrogates the articulation, upon which human institutions rest, of the ‘social’ and the ‘vital’.[8] She is known for her publications on the social philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno.[9] On the basis of this work, she aims to think moral life in relation to capitalism from a critical and materialist perspective. In The Fragility of Concern for Others: Adorno and the Ethics of Care, she argues that the capitalist form of life produces, at one and the same time, a generalised indifference as well as a compartmentalised attention to others. This attention is gendered insofar as it is attributed to women, as well as limited to those fields which are liable to produce private labour and consumption.[10] Her book, Le marché de la vertu : Critique de la consommation éthique, is a critique of ethical consumption, drawing on the Adornian theory of the market. According to Ferrarese, the current proliferation of consumption practices advocating a ‘just’ price or ‘responsible’ purchases founds its success on a supposed critique of capitalism, a critique which takes place at the level of daily life. Ferrarese opposes popular opinion and demonstrates that ethical consumption takes part in the same order that it would escape.[11]
In her work on ethics of care, she has contributed to the philosophical area of vulnerability, which she defines as a being-at-another’s-mercy.[12] She proposes a feminist reading of vulnerability as exposure to the ability of others to act, an exposure instituted by normative expectations.[13] On this basis, she aims to rethink equality, social transformation, and being-in-common.[14]
In Une philosophie des sanglots, she places the body at the center of Critical Theory, showing how crises of sobs constitute minuscule acts of protest not only against one’s powerlessness, but also against the modern figure of the Subject who repeatedly enjoins one to get over this powerlessness.[15]
Principal Publications
• Une philosophie des sanglots, Paris, Rivages (Petite bibliothèque, 2025). • Le marché de la vertu. Critique de la consommation éthique (Vrin, 2023) (English translation: Edinburgh University Press, 2026). • Vulnerability and Critical Theory (Brill Research Perspectives in Critical Theory, 2018). • La fragilité du souci des autres. Adorno et le care (Editions de l’ENS, 2018). English Translation : The Fragility of Concern for Others: Adorno and the Ethics of Care (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). • How Capitalism Forms Our Lives, ed. by Alyson Cole & Estelle Ferrarese (Routledge, 2018). •Formes de vie, ed. by Estelle Ferrarese & Sandra Laugier (Éditions du CNRS, 2018). •The Politics of Vulnerability, ed. by Estelle Ferrarese (Routledge, 2017). • Ethique et politique de l'espace public. Habermas et la discussion (Vrin, 2015). • Qu’est-ce que lutter pour la reconnaissance ? , ed. by Estelle Ferrarese (Éditions Le Bord de l’Eau, 2013). • Niklas Luhmann, une introduction (Pocket La Découverte, 2007).
References
VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) International Standard Name Identifier Bibliothèque nationale de France (données) Système universitaire de documentation Library of Congress Gemeinsame Normdatei Koninklijke Bibliotheek WorldCat
External Links
•Biography - CURAPP-ESS • Page on Edinburgh University Press: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/estelle-ferrarese • Page on France Culture: https://www.franceculture.fr/personne-estelle-ferrarese.html • Page on Books & Ideas: https://booksandideas.net/_Ferrarese-Estelle_ • Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=fr&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Estelle+Ferrarese&btnG=
Portal: Feminism Portal: [[1]]
References
- ↑ "FERRARESE Estelle – Curapp". CURAPP-ESS. Retrieved 3 January 2026.
- ↑ "Les membres - Institut Universitaire de France". Institut universitaire de France. Retrieved 3 January 2026.
- ↑ "Presentation". Institut du genre. Retrieved 4 January 2026.
- ↑ Ferrarese, Estelle (2018). "(Re)faire de la Théorie critique. Pour une (re)lecture féministe de l'École de Francfort". Cités. 1 (73): 43–55. doi:10.3917/cite.073.0043. ISSN 1299-5495.
- ↑ "Routledge". Retrieved 4 January 2026.
- ↑ "FERRARESE Estelle – Curapp". CURAPP-ESS. Retrieved 3 January 2026.
- ↑ "Estelle Ferrarese". Center for the Humanities. Retrieved 4 January 2026.
- ↑ Alyson Cole & Estelle Ferrarese (2018). "How Capitalism Forms Our Lives". Journal for Cultural Research. 22 (2): 105–112. doi:10.1080/14797585.2018.1461597. ISSN 479-7585 Check
|issn=value (help). - ↑ Estelle Ferrarese (2021). The Fragility of Concern for Others: Adorno and the Ethics of Care. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN ISBN: 9781474496094 ISBN: 1474496091 ISBN: 9781474467414 ISBN: 1474467415 ISBN: 9781474467391 ISBN: 1474467393 Check
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- ↑ "The Fragility of Concern for Others". Edinburgh University Press. Retrieved 3 January 2026.
- ↑ Ferrarese, Estelle (24 August 2023). Le marché de la vertu - Critique de la consommation éthique | Collection Problèmes & Controverses. Vrin. Librairie philosophique J. Vrin. ISBN 978-2-7116-3129-2. Retrieved 3 January 2026. Search this book on
- ↑ Estelle Ferrarese (2018). Vulnerability and Critical Theory. BRILL. p. 1. ISBN 900436790X, 9789004367906 Check
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- ↑ Liesbeth Schoonheim & Tivadar Vervoort (2022). "The Politics of Vulnerability and Care: An Interview with Estelle Ferrarese". Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy. 42 (1): 77–92. doi:10.21827/krisis.42.1.38697.
- ↑ Sanna Karhu, ‘The Politics of Vulnerability, ed. by Estelle Ferrarese (review)’, philoSOPHIA (State University of New York Press, 2021) Vol.10 (2), p. 280-285, ISSN: 2155-0891 ISSN: 2155-0905 EISSN: 2155-0905 DOI: 10.1353/phi.2021.0010. (2021). "The Politics of Vulnerability, ed. by Estelle Ferrarese (review)". PhiloSOPHIA. State University of New York Press. 10 (2): 280–285. doi:10.1353/phi.2021.0010. ISSN 2155-0905 2155-0891, 2155-0905 Check
|issn=value (help).CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ "« Une philosophie des sanglots », d'Estelle Ferrarese : Nés de l'impuissance révoltée". https://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2025/03/09/une-philosophie-des-sanglots-d-estelle-ferrarese-nes-de-l-impuissance-revoltee_6577648_3260.html. 9 March 2025. Retrieved January 2026. Check date values in:
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