Boscán, A. Revista de Filosofía, Vol. 42, Nº Especial 2025, pp. 37-60 38
Universidad del Zulia. Maracaibo-Venezuela. ISSN: 0798-1171 / e-ISSN: 2477-9598
Abstract
In this essay, we describe the academic career of Gloria Comesaña Santalices, an
extraordinary thinker, perhaps in a way that will surprise many, even scholars of her work,
due to the integrated way in which we present aspects of her intellectual and professional
life, previously known in a scattered manner, thus fulfilling our purpose of demonstrating
the organic nature of her thought. We have emphasized, as Gloria often publicly
demanded, her role as an academic, since, above all, she defined herself as a philosopher,
albeit one marked by feminism. We also highlight the broad nature of her philosophical
thought, since, in addition to her well-known training as a Marxist, Sartrean, Arendtian,
and feminist, she maintained important and open dialogues with ecology, medicine,
psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, history, among other disciplines. Her interlocutions
with the theologies of thinkers, both feminist and non-feminist, are profound. She even
dedicated several decades of her professional life to the philosophical education of
seminarians, earning her the respect and sympathy of the clerical community, which
recognized her as a serious scholar and a thinker with respectable arguments against
inequality and social injustice. This experience also served to reaffirm her own heterodox
conceptions of Divinity and religion. We will also refer to the various leadership positions
she held throughout her professional career, because she knew how essential it was for
women with a feminist vision to participate in the various instances of university power, as
the only way to undermine the structural foundations of an institution strongly marked by
sexism.
Keywords: Gloria Comesaña Santalices, analytical biography, philosopher, feminist,
academia.
Introducción
Hace alrededor de cinco años atrás, el editor de la revista Utopía y Praxis
Latinoamericana, el doctor Álvaro Márquez Fernández, hizo un llamado personal a varias
investigadoras e investigadores a participar en la edición de un número especial dedicado a
rendirle tributo en vida a Gloria Comesaña Santalices, específicamente con la presentación
de un artículo, ensayo o recensión sobre su trayectoria y legado. Lamentablemente, este
proyecto no se concretó debido a la muerte inesperada de Álvaro, pero nuestro artículo ya
estaba hecho. Decidimos guardarlo, hasta que se presentara la oportunidad para
publicarlo, y esa oportunidad llegó, pero no del modo que hubiéramos querido: cuando se
comenzaron a hacer tributos a Gloria después de su lamentable partida de nuestra
realidad.
Para quienes tuvimos con Gloria una relación no sólo académica, sino de amistad
durante muchos años, hacer un artículo de su trayectoria representaba un enorme reto, y
esto por la dificultad de reseñar en unas cuantas páginas el pensamiento de una autora que
sabíamos tenía amplios intereses, muchos de ellos pocos conocidos. En realidad, el
feminismo no había sido lo único que estudió y promovió, o a lo que supuestamente ella