The Politics of Intellectual Visibility

Sor Juana's works were published, debated, and celebrated during her lifetime—she achieved visibility that many women scholars never attained. Yet even her visibility was contested: the church eventually pressured her to stop writing, and her legacy was nearly lost until modern recovery of her texts. This concept examines visibility as a justice issue: which voices get published, celebrated, quoted, taught, and remembered is never neutral but always shaped by power. When women's intellectual work remains invisible while men's is highlighted, or when colonized people's ideas are erased while colonizers' are centered, this invisibility itself perpetuates injustice by reinforcing who counts as a legitimate knower. Fairness requires intentional politics of visibility that ensure marginalized people's contributions are not only permitted but actively elevated and commemorated. This includes publishing diverse authors, teaching women philosophers, crediting indigenous knowledge systems, and making visible the intellectual work that systems have tried to suppress. Sor Juana's visibility became a tool for her influence; her recovery and current prominence serve justice by showing women's intellectual capacity and inspiring others to claim their own intellectual authority.