Stella Villarmea – Professor of Philosophy, Complutense University of Madrid

Marie S. Curie Fellow, University of Oxford

Preferred contact: svillarm@ucm.es

Website: https://ucm.academia.edu/StellaVillarmea

Resident in: Spain;

Working in: Spain;

Brief Description of Work:

Stella Villarmea is Professor of Philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid. She currently does research on the philosophy of birth, i.e., on how our notions of childbirth reflect our view of the human being. She is interested in conceptual innovation and the relationship between knowledge and emancipatory action. She has also worked on epistemology (e.g., Wittgenstein and scepticism), philosophy of feminism (e.g., Haraway and Levinas), and meta-philosophy (e.g., Moore and Kant).

As Marie S. Curie Fellow at the University of Oxford, she developed a philosophical understanding of conflicts and consensus around birth in the research project, “Controversies in Childbirth: from Epistemology to Practices (VOICE´s)”, funded by the European Commission. As IP of the project “Philosophy of Birth: Rethinking the Origin from Medical Humanities”, funded by the Ministry of Economy of Spain, she led an international and interdisciplinary team of experts on birth  and birth care.

She received the Special Distinction of Excellence for her 20 year-teaching former career at the University of Alcalá. She has been Visiting Professor at the Universities of Humboldt, Lund, Paderborn, Kent, and Marie Curie-Lublin, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Saint Louis, Madrid-Missouri.

She presently serves on the Steering and Gender Committees of the International Federation of Philosophical Associations (FISP). She also served as  Speaker on the International Association of Women Philosophers (IAPh) and as Board Member on Red Española de Filosofía [Spanish Network of Philosophy] (REF).

Stella was the Director of the II International Conference on the Philosophy of Birth, the II Festival of Philosophy ‘Bread and Circuses: Slaveries in 21st Century’, and the XV IAPh Symposium: ‘Philosophy and Feminist Practices’, and a regular organiser of outreach events in philosophy. My writing for general audiences – on philosophy, gender, childbirth, and democracy – has appeared in El País and The Conversation.

Further detail on Stella’s work on Values-based Practice in childbirth is available through the “read more” link below. Stella is also convener of the newly launched Values-based Practice in Childbirth network.

Read More: Stella Villarmea: Values-based Practice in Childbirth

Area(s) of Interest in VBP:

Education, Meeting/ASS (Advanced Studies Seminar), Publications/CUP series, Research/philosophy;

Related Area(s) of Interest: Communication skills, Decision theory, Ethics, Medical humanities/[Philosophy]; Area(s) of healthcare expertise: Other/[Childbirth activism and participatory democracy through civil associations]