Silvia Federici

For several decades, she has worked with a variety of international feminist organizations, such as Women in Nigeria (WIN) and the Latin American-based Ni una menos, to combat gender-based violence. In the 2010s, she organized a project with feminist collectives in Spain to reconstruct the history of women persecuted as witches in early modern Europe, and to raise awareness about what she believes are contemporary witch-hunts still taking place around the world.

Silvia Federici studied at University at Buffalo and University of Bologna. The recorded working language is English and Italian. The field of work recorded is sociology, gender studies and political philosophy. Places of work recorded in the authority are New York City. Employment is recorded with University of Port Harcourt and Hofstra University. Works named in the authority record are Caliban and the Witch.

• Region — Western philosophy • Era — Contemporary philosophy • School Tradition — * Continental philosophy • Autonomism • Marxist feminism • Name — Silvia Federici • Born — 1942 • Birthplace — Parma, Italy • Education — University at Buffalo (PhD) • Institutions — * University of Port Harcourt • Hofstra University • Notable Works — Wages Against Housework (1975) Caliban and the Witch (2004) • Partner — George Caffentzis

Federici was born in Parma, Italy, in 1942. With the aid of a Fulbright scholarship, she moved to the United States in 1967 to study for a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University at Buffalo. She completed her doctorate in 1980 with a dissertation entitled The Development of Lukács' Realism, an examination of the philosophical and aesthetic development of György Lukács. The dissertation challenges interpretations that divide Lukács's intellectual development into sharply separated pre-Marxist, Marxist-Hegelian and later aesthetic periods, instead emphasizing continuities in his attempts to reconcile idealism, Marxism and a realist conception of an objective world. During the period in which she was developing this work, Federici published "Notes on Lukács' Aesthetics" in Telos in 1972.

After earning her doctorate, Federici taught for several years at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. She then became Associate Professor and later Professor of Political Philosophy and International Studies at Hofstra University in New York. She holds the title of Professor Emerita at Hofstra.

In 1972, with Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, Federici co-founded the International Feminist Collective, the organization that launched the campaign for Wages for Housework. In 1973, she helped start "Wages for Housework" groups in the U.S. In 1975, she published the pamphlet Wages Against Housework, the document most associated with the Wages for Housework movement. In the 1980s and '90s, Federici was a member of the Midnight Notes Collective. In 1990, she co-founded the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA) and, with Ousseina Alidou, edited the CAFA bulletin for over a decade. Her involvement with CAFA led to her serving for several years as an Executive member of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS). In 1995, during the campaign to free African-American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from death row, Federici helped launch the Anti-Death Penalty Project (ADPP) within the Radical Philosophy Association. Along with ADPP co-leaders George Caffentzis and Everet Green, Federici encouraged the global academic community to agitate against the death penalty. In March 2022, Federici was among the 151 feminists worldwide who signed Feminist Resistance Against War: A Manifesto, in solidarity with the Russian Feminist Anti-War Resistance.

Federici lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her partner George Caffentzis.

• 8-page pamphlet. • Co-written with Leopoldina Fortunati. * * * * * * * *

• (1995) (ed.) Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its "Others". Westport, Connecticut, and London: Praeger. • (2000) (ed.) A Thousand Flowers: Structural Adjustment and the Struggle for Education in Africa. Africa World Press. Co-edited with George Caffentzis and Ousseina Alidou. • (2000) (ed.) African Visions: Literary Images, Political Change, and Social Struggle in Contemporary Africa. Westport, Connecticut, and London: Praeger. Co-edited with Joseph McLaren and Cheryl Mwaria. • (2021) (ed.) Feminicide and Global Accumulation: Frontline Struggles to Resist the Violence of Patriarchy and Capitalism. Brooklyn, New York: Common Notions. Co-edited with Susana Draper and Liz Mason-Deese.