Sally Haslanger will hold the Spinoza Chair at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Amsterdam in the second term of the academic year 2014-2015 and will be delivering the accompanying two Spinoza Lectures on 'Critical Theory and Practice'. Haslanger’s first Spinoza Lecture is entitled ‘Ideology and Materiality’. Social life is ideologically governed. Our actions and interactions are both constrained and enabled by cultural schemas. It is tempting to conclude that the social world is, therefore, mind-dependent and, perhaps, less than fully objective. However, ideology works through social practices that engage, produce, and reproduce the material world. As a result, our schemas are reflected in and reinforced by the world around us. The lecture examines ways in which ideology is, instead, dependent on the objectivity and the materiality of the social world, and the implications of this for social change. Sally Haslanger is Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her most recent book, Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique (Oxford 2012) received the Joseph B. Gittler Award for outstanding scholarly work in the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences. Haslanger earned her PhD at the University of California-Berkeley (1985) after receiving an MA at the University of Virginia (1979) and a BA at Reed College (1977). Date and time: Thursday, April 9, 2015, at 20:15. The Aula will open at 19:30. Location: Aula of the University of Amsterdam, Oude Lutherse kerk, Singel 411 Admission is free (no reservation required). On Thursday, May 21, Haslanger will give the second Spinoza Lecture entitled ‘Ideology and Morality’. see also: http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/faculteiten/content/faculteit-der- geesteswetenschappen/agenda/agenda/agenda/content/folder-13/lectures/2015/04 /spinoza-lecture-ideology-and-materiality.html?page=3&pageSize=20