Conference New Feminist Materialism
19/03/2010
Annual Conference Landelijk Netwerk Vrouwenstudies Filosofie
(Dutch Network for Gender Studies in Philosophy)
The theme of the annual conference of the Dutch Network for Gender
studies in Philosophy this year is ‘new feminist materialism’. It is
inspired by the dissertation of dr. Iris van der Tuin (UUtrecht). In her
thesis, Van der Tuin discusses the new feminist epistemologies that
she classifies as ‘new materialism’.
Speakers: dr. Iris van der Tuin (UU) and dr. Rick Dolphijn (UU).
The conference will be concluded with a panel discussion. Participants: prof. dr. Hub Zwart (Radboud University), dr. Veronica Vasterling (Radboud University) and drs. Eliza Steinbock (UvA).
Abstract: New Feminist Materialism: On Second- and Third-Wave Feminist
Epistemology - Iris van der Tuin
This paper will provide a cartography of ‘new feminist materialism’.
This contemporary, third-wave feminist epistemology thinks about the
way in which physical and bodily matter is an active participant in
processes of signification and knowledge production. As such, it
comments on the linguistic paradigm in feminist theory, the apotheosis
of which is to be found in the work of Judith Butler. The paper will
visit three sets of feminist epistemologists: Rosi Braidotti, who
coined the term ‘new materialism’ in the 1990s, and Butler; Sandra
Harding and Donna Haraway; and Claire Colebrook and Karen Barad,
members of the new generation. The paper will address their takes on
matter and the ‘material-semiotic’, as well as their generational
politics. It will argue that the new feminist materialism is
non-dualist in two ways: materiality and linguistics are
conceptualized as intra-active, and so is the relation between
contemporary feminist theory and the theories of the so-called
founding mothers of our field.
Abstract: Feminism’s Minor Histories - Rick Dolphijn
The three sets of feminist epistemologies discussed by van der Tuin
reveal the coming of a very different body. Of course this is a body
dehumanized, as in moving away from a masculine major that has
dominated our thinking for such a long time. Yet at the same time,
other revolutions have been set in movement. There are movements
towards wholly other notions of the different (from a difference in
kind to a difference in degree), of the body (from the extensive, the
calculable grid, to the intensive, the incalculable matter field) and
of expression (from the linguistic static order to the a pragmatics of
affect, force and movement). In this presentation, making reference to
the authors discussed by van der Tuin, I propose to reread this new
feminist materialism by means of these three histories. By no means in
order to embed feminism into general themes in academic thought, but
all the more in order to get a better grip on the radicalism of
feminist thought in all of its creativity.
For more information, please contact: Annemie Halsema: jm.halsema@ph.vu.nl
Plaats en tijdstip
Atrium - Dept. of Medicine Building
Boechorstraat 7
Amsterdam
13:00-16:00
