Sandra Harding, longtime professor of women’s studies, passed away on March 5. She was 89 years old.
A scholar of feminist philosophy and the social studies of science, Dr. Harding’s first teaching position was with the State University of New York at Albany. She next served as a professor with the University of Delaware from 1975 to 1996. She then transitioned to the University of California, Los Angeles, where she taught for the next two decades. While at UCLA, she served as a distinguished professor of education and women’s studies and had a stint as director of the Center for the Study of Women. Upon her retirement, she was named a distinguished research professor emerita.
Outside of her primary faculty appointments, Dr. Harding served as a visiting lecturer with institutions around the world. She authored over 100 scholarly articles and several books, including The Science Question in Feminism (Cornell University Press, 1986) and Sciences From Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities (Duke University Press, 2008). A forthcoming book, Decentralizing Knowledges: Essays on Distributed Agencies, will be published posthumously.
As a leader in her field, Dr. Harding was a dedicated member of the Society for Women in Philosophy, an editorial board member for Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, and co-editor of SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. After her retirement, she collaborated with scholars from Latin American to co-found a new academic journal, Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology, and Society.
Dr. Harding received her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey and her doctorate in philosophy from New York University.