[csaa-forum] Reminder: Master Class with Professor Ulrika Dahl

[Somatechnics Administrator]

The Somatechnics Research Centre at Macquarie University presents

*Feminist Figurations, Femme-inine Futures*

*Friday March 26th*

*10am-5pm*

with Professor Ulrika Dahl

Södertörn University


*’A figuration is an image of the future; performative in as far as it
embodies an epistemological and ontological shift which acts, albeit
virtually in the present’ *

*(Kember 1996:256)*

*’Figures collect up hopes and fears and show possibilities and dangers.
Both imaginary and material, figures root people in stories and link them to
histories. Stories are always more generous, more capacious than ideologies;
in fact that is one of my strongest hopes’ (Haraway 2004: 1) *

*Figurations are forms of literal expression which represent that which the
system has declared off-limits. There are situated practices that require
the awareness of the limitations as well as the specificity of one’s
locations. They illuminate all the aspects of one’s subjectivity that the
phallogocentric regime does not want us to become. This kind of
philosophical creativity operates a shift of paradigm towards a positive
appraisal of differences, deviances or anomalies, not as an end in
themselves, but as steps in a process of recomposition of the coordinates of
subjectivity in techno-culture. (Rosi Braidotti 2006:170)*


This master class is an engaged disussion clustered around the concept of *
figuration* as it has been put to work in the past decades in attempts to
imagine new and hopeful (feminist) models of subjectivity. With readings and
excerpts by Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Claudia Castaneda, Gloria
Anzaldua, Trinh T. Minh-ha and others, and with a somatechnics framework in
mind, we will consider various understandings of the concept of figuration,
the work that it does and might do in feminist projects, the relationship
between figure and figuration and the implication of a queer kinship of
feminist figures as a future. Ulrika Dahl will introduce some of her
thoughts for thinking about femme as figuration in a project with hopes for
queering femininity and in examining the relationship between femininity and
feminist theories. Can we imagine new forms of theorizing the materiality
and embodiment of femininity through figuration? What is the relationship
between the figures and what makes a figuration? Does it have boundaries?
What might a kinship of feminist figurations look like? What work does a
political fiction do in theoretical and/or empirical work in feminist
critical cultural studies?

Participants are asked to consider the assigned readings, to prepare a short
(5 min) reflection on their thoughts, understandings, objections, hopes,
etc, for what figuration may or may not do in their projects, and to engage
in imaginative discussions about future feminist subjectivities.

Registered participants will be provided with a set of readings and further
questions to consider.

*Registration:*

This event is open to postgraduate students and academic staff. Registration
is free.

Registration for this event is essential, and numbers are limited so please
register early.

Registrations close: Tuesday March 23rd

To register email: *somatechnicsadmin at gmail.com*<somatechnicsadmin at gmail.com>

Lunch will be provided, as will tea and coffee.


-- 
__________________________________
Somatechnics Research Centre
Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy
Macquarie University
NSW 2109 Australia
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