Gaslighting
Philosophical Approaches
Published on 2. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
298 pages
979-8-8558-0131-6 (ISBN)
Description
A feminist introduction to emerging philosophical understandings of gaslighting.
Originating in a 1938 play, the term gaslighting has become part of our everyday vocabulary. But do we truly know what it means? This collection of new and foundational essays explores concepts and experiences of gaslighting from philosophical perspectives. Contributors build on longstanding feminist analyses of the relations among knowledge, affect, and power to consider how gaslighting can work at not only individual but also structural levels to undermine its targets. In examining racial, epistemological, medical, affective, political, and other forms of gaslighting, the book helps illuminate contemporary power relations and provides urgently needed tools for further research in and beyond the field of philosophy.
Originating in a 1938 play, the term gaslighting has become part of our everyday vocabulary. But do we truly know what it means? This collection of new and foundational essays explores concepts and experiences of gaslighting from philosophical perspectives. Contributors build on longstanding feminist analyses of the relations among knowledge, affect, and power to consider how gaslighting can work at not only individual but also structural levels to undermine its targets. In examining racial, epistemological, medical, affective, political, and other forms of gaslighting, the book helps illuminate contemporary power relations and provides urgently needed tools for further research in and beyond the field of philosophy.
Reviews / Votes
"A thoughtfully constructed volume on a crucially important and timely topic. The book brings conceptual clarity to the hugely popular term gaslighting and offers real philosophical advances from a variety of perspectives, helping us make sense of both our experiences and the wider culture. It will be of use to feminist philosophers and theorists, as well as students and teachers in philosophy, women's and gender studies, medical ethics, critical philosophies of race and coloniality, and disability studies. We have been waiting for this book." - Sina Kramer, author of Excluded Within: The (Un)Intelligibility of Radical Political ActorsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
2 Tables, black and white; 1 Figures
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
426 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-8558-0131-6 (9798855801316)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2025
1st Edition
State University of New York Press
€36.99
Available for download
Persons
Kelly Oliver is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy Emerita at Vanderbilt University. Her books include Response Ethics; Carceral Humanitarianism: The Logic of Refugee Detention; and Earth and World: Philosophy after the Apollo Missions. Hanna Kiri Gunn is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Merced. Holly Longair is a full-time regular instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Hanna Kiri Gunn and Holly Longair
Part I: What Is Gaslighting?
1. Structural Gaslighting
Nora Berenstain
2. Theorizing Structural Gaslighting as Gaslighting
Holly Longair
3. Gaslighting and Social Power: Mills, Medina, and Moi on Knowledge and the Social Imaginary
Sabrina L. Hom
4. Moral Gaslighting
Kate Manne
5. Affective Gaslighting
Kelly Oliver
6. Anger Gaslighting as Affective Injustice
Shiloh Whitney
Part II: Experiences of Gaslighting
7. Allies Behaving Badly: Gaslighting as Epistemic Injustice
Veronica Ivy [Rachel McKinnon]
8. Racial Gaslighting
Angelique M. Davis and Rose Ernst
9. Varieties of Gaslighting
Cynthia A. Stark
10. Giving an Account of the Harms of Medical Gaslighting
Lilyana Levy
11. Structural Gaslighting: Hurricane Maria and Recovery in Puerto Rico
Taina M. Figueroa
List of Contributors
Index
Introduction
Hanna Kiri Gunn and Holly Longair
Part I: What Is Gaslighting?
1. Structural Gaslighting
Nora Berenstain
2. Theorizing Structural Gaslighting as Gaslighting
Holly Longair
3. Gaslighting and Social Power: Mills, Medina, and Moi on Knowledge and the Social Imaginary
Sabrina L. Hom
4. Moral Gaslighting
Kate Manne
5. Affective Gaslighting
Kelly Oliver
6. Anger Gaslighting as Affective Injustice
Shiloh Whitney
Part II: Experiences of Gaslighting
7. Allies Behaving Badly: Gaslighting as Epistemic Injustice
Veronica Ivy [Rachel McKinnon]
8. Racial Gaslighting
Angelique M. Davis and Rose Ernst
9. Varieties of Gaslighting
Cynthia A. Stark
10. Giving an Account of the Harms of Medical Gaslighting
Lilyana Levy
11. Structural Gaslighting: Hurricane Maria and Recovery in Puerto Rico
Taina M. Figueroa
List of Contributors
Index