[csaa-forum] Sara Ahmed speaks on 'Willful Subjects', AWGSA 2014 conference, Melbourne

[Camille Nurka]

Willful Subjects: Responsibility, Fragility, History: AWGSA Public Lecture
<http://awgsa.org.au/willful-subjects/>


*SARA AHMED <http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/ahmed/>
* *Tuesday
24 June, 4pm, - Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts, University of Melbourne*

http://awgsa.org.au/willful-subjects/
 [image: Sara Ahmed, AWGSA 2014 Conference Keynote]
<http://awgsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/images.jpeg>

Sara Ahmed, AWGSA 2014 Conference Keynote

In this lecture I suggest that rethinking what is at stake in willfulness
is a way of rethinking responsibility. In recent ethical  philosophy,
responsibility has been shifted away from “willful subjects” as those who
make decisions or are held to account (as we can see for example in
François Raffoul’s 2010 book, *The Origin of Responsibility). *

In this paper, I offer a different kind of account of willful subjects,
showing how willfulness tends to be a charge made against subjects who are
“too impulsive,” or who lack the coordination required to ask responsibly.
I consider how feminists are often judged as being willful, and thus how
feminism becomes understood as failing the condition of responsibility. I
also note how willfulness tends to “come up” in scenes of breakage and
suggest that willfulness can be experienced as an affinity between what and
who is deemed to cause breakage as well as what and who is given the
quality of being breakable. My aim throughout will be to offer a
reanimation of responsibility as a way of being responsive to histories
that leaves us fragile.

Sara Ahmed’s new book *Willful Subjects
<http://www.dukeupress.edu/Willful-Subjects/> *will be published in 2014.
 This event is an open public lecture offered as part of the Biennial AWGSA
Conference <http://awgsa.org.au/awgsa-biennial-conference-2014/>, occurring
at the University of Melbourne 23-25 June.  *The lecture will be at 4pm on
24 June 2014 in the Public Lecture Theatre, Old Arts Building, University
of Melbourne. *

The 2014 Conference is hosted by gender and women’s studies programs based
in Melbourne Universities: Centre for Women’s Studies & Gender Research
<http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/womens-and-gender-studies/> in Sociology
<http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/sociology/>, Monash University; Gender
Studies
<http://culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/study-areas/gender-studies>,
University of Melbourne; Sociology and Gender Studies
<http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/shss/>, Deakin University.



-- 

*Dr. Camille Nurka*
Copyeditor, corporate writer.
 <camille.nurka at gmail.com>

http://camillenurka.com.au/

ABN: 14 086 150 241
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