Rosa Vince (they/them)

BA, MA, PhD (University of Sheffield), FHEA

Department of Philosophy

Teaching Associate in Philosophy

Employability and Alumni Lead

Photograph of Rosa Vince
Profile picture of Photograph of Rosa Vince
rosa.vince@sheffield.ac.uk
0114 222 0593
Wednesday 12-1 (in person)
Thursday 1-2 (online)

Full contact details

Rosa Vince
Department of Philosophy
A03
45 Victoria Street
Sheffield
S3 7QB
Profile

Rosa began a lectureship in the Department Philosophy in 2022. Prior to this: Rosa worked in a Students’ Union as a Campaigns and Liberation coordinator for the year 2021-2022, after completing their PhD in Philosophy in the summer of 2021. Rosa studied their PhD, MA, and BA at Sheffield, and has had a number of teaching roles along the way, as well as other casual roles around the University and Students’ Union. 

Rosa’s research is situated in Philosophy of Sex and Feminist Philosophy. In their PhD thesis Rosa argued that Objectification is not necessarily harmful, and Pornography is not uniquely or distinctly harmful in virtue of objectification. Rosa particularly values philosophical work done outside of the academy, and is interested in projects that involve crediting and platforming thinkers outside the university, as well publicly distributing the material and conceptual resources from within Universities.

Research interests

My main research interests are: 

  • Sex
  • Objectification
  • Porn
  • BDSM
  • Sex Work
  • Epistemic Injustice
  • Harm Reduction
  • Stigma, Stereotypes, and Rape Myths
  • Sexual Consent
  • Oppression and Social [In/]Justice
Publications

Journal articles

Teaching interests

My courses address important philosophical issues relating to our social, personal, and political lives. As well as looking at key philosophical texts (both recent and less recent), my courses often include looking at texts from across disciplines and outside the academy. You’ll spot the occasional blog post, interview, and video among the readings for my courses. 

In designing modules, I try to balance having a clearly defined structure with retaining some flexibility for students to contribute to the direction of the module. For example, in Topics in Social Philosophy, I leave the final week open for students to choose from a range of topics (all of which tie in to the rest of the module in different ways). In my view, building in choices where possible is important: we all do better work and have more fun when we can follow our interests. 

In future, I’m also interested in trying out alternative assessment methods. I’d be delighted to hear from any staff and students who’ve found assessment methods that worked well (or didn’t)!

Teaching activities

PHI61014 Topics in Social Philosophy (Autumn 2022)

PHI31012 Topics in Social Philosophy (Autumn 2022)

This module examines contemporary issues in social philosophy. Social philosophy investigates aspects of our social world, asking, for example:

  • What are social identities like gender and race? Can our identities affect what we are able to know?
  • What is work? Is work good? Are there particular kinds of work that are uniquely worrisome? To what extent are we free if we have to work to survive?
  • How should we respond to injustices? Are some forms of resistance more justified than others? 

PHI158 Philosophy of Sex (Autumn 2022)

In this course, we discuss moral, political, and metaphysical issues related to sex. We examine when we might be right to judge a particular sex act to be morally problematic; and what political significance (if any) sex has. We will also look at the surprisingly difficult questions of what exactly sex is and what a sexual orientation is. 

PHI6590 Feminism (Spring 2023)

PHI216 Feminism (Spring 2023)

Feminists have famously claimed that the personal is political, and argued against traditional understandings of the public/private distinction. This module will be devoted to examining a wide variety of areas not traditionally considered to be of political relevance, which feminists have argued are in fact crucial to politics. We will discuss such issues as family structure, sex, bodies and appearance, knowledge, culture, and language. We will look at disagreements between different feminists on these issues, and we will look at inclusion and exclusion within feminist theorising.

Postgraduate supervision

Rosa is interested in supervising topics around Sex, Feminist Philosophy, Social Philosophy (broadly), and Applied Ethics (especially Sexual Ethics)