The Center for the Humanities Advisory Board has selected Tammy Nyden, associate professor of philosophy, as the 2023–24 Center for the Humanities faculty fellow.
As fellow, Nyden will be developing a book proposal, Children’s Mental Health Justice, which draws on her current scholarship, activism and experience in children’s mental health legislative and policy advocacy. Nyden will trace how punitive excess, disguised as care, has deep roots in Enlightenment philosophies and express themselves today in social injustices targeting children and families. The book discusses how epistemic injustices endemic in our society are fostered by narratives about mothers, motherhood, and “at-risk youth.”
Course Description
As the fellow, Nyden will also teach a two-credit course called Children’s Mental Health Justice. This course will discuss social injustices currently faced by American children as symptoms of the same problem: the misrepresentation of control and punishment as care. Together, the class will examine the issues and social movements around the school-to-prison nexus, the foster industrial complex, the children’s mental health crisis, and legislative and policy attacks on trans youth. The class will consider how these issues are part of a larger crisis of care.
Public Talk
Motherblame-stigma, Epistemic Injustice, and the Government’s Failure to Care
Scholars’ Convocation: Tammy Nyden
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Rosenfield Center (JRC), Room 101, 11 a.m.
Nyden will examine the history of motherblame and how it operates to obscure government failures to provide a full continuum of non-carceral mental health care for children. Using the framework of epistemic injustice (how people are harmed as knowers), she examines motherblame-stigma as a social prejudice fueling various forms of epistemic oppressions, which scapegoat, gaslight, and exploit mothers, contributing to both the children’s mental health crisis and the care crisis.
Tammy Nyden is a professor of philosophy and affiliate faculty to the gender, women’s, and sexuality studies program at Grinnell College. She is also a co-creator and co-director of Mothers on the Frontline, a children’s mental health justice non-profit organization. Her current scholarship traces how punitive excess, disguised as care, has deep roots in Enlightenment philosophies and expresses itself today in social and epistemic injustices targeting children, their caregivers, and families.
This event is co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and Scholars’ Convocation Committee. Everyone is welcome.