The Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies in cooperation with the Graduate Gender Programme (GGeP) at Utrecht University organises the seventeenth round of the DOING GENDER Lecture Series. These lectures stress the importance of doing gender work combined with an active involvement in the practice of gender theory and research. The concept of DOING GENDER supports a hands-on approach to gender issues in the sense of social and political engagement with the new forms of gender inequalities that are taking shape in the world today. The lecture series wants to give space to the new generations of gender theorists and practitioners and to perspectives that innovate the field and do gender in new ways. Key is the notion of doing gender: what is the state of the art definition of gender? How do contemporary scholars and activists utilise this definition?

On Tuesday June 13, 2017, Prof. dr. Lynne Huffer will give a Doing Gender Lecture on ‘Wanton Extinction: Queer Feminist Ethics in the Anthropocene’

This talk seeks to engage and unsettle some of the assumptions that undergird contemporary new materialisms and the ecological thinking to which much of that work is bound. Drawing on the method of Foucauldian genealogy, the paper asks about ethics in the context of the Anthropocene and contemporary discourses of mass extinction. If the Anthropocene is a problem of our time, how do we engage in ethics talk within a frame that paradoxically both recenters and exceeds the human? The paper argues that Foucault’s archival method offers a way to approach this question through a focus on earth archives as historical traces of other-than-human beings. Engaging specifically the long debated question of when the Anthropocene started, she offers a decolonial queer feminist perspective on these origin stories as bound to the epistemic and moral foundations of a modern Western anthropos that masks his own emergence through genocidal violence. The earth archive as ice core offers an alternative story to this usual humanist narrative. Drawing on the speech we might hear in the ice, she ultimately argues for a queer feminist mode of ethical questioning as a limit-attitude that temporarily suspends the modes of intelligibility of our present. In this way she hopes to reopen the question of Anthropocene ethics as a simultaneously human and posthuman endeavor.

Doing Gender Lecture details:

Tuesday June 13, 2017, Prof. dr. Lynne Huffer (Emory University, USA)

  • Lecture: ‘Wanton Extinction: Queer Feminist Ethics in the Anthropocene’
  • Time: 15:30 – 17:00 hrs
  • Location: Utrecht – Drift 25, room 1.02
  • Chair: Dr. Kathrin Thiele

This Doing Gender Lecture is part of the Masterclass but open to all. It takes place in Utrecht and is free of charge.
Registration is compulsory: nog@uu.nl

CFP: PhD/Research MA masterclass Feminist Theory with and around the work of Prof. dr. Lynne Huffer organised by the OZSW in cooperation with NOG

  • Date: June 14, 2017
  • Locations: Leiden University
  • Organisers: dr. Kathrin Thiele (Utrecht University) dr. Annemie Halsema (VU Amsterdam) and Nathanja van den Heuvel (PhD candidate Leiden University)

The masterclass is a high-level course aimed at advanced Research MA and PhD students whose research relates to themes such as ethics in the Anthropocene, (feminist) posthumanisms, Foucauldian feminisms, feminist (new) materialism, French feminism, queer theory, feminist epistemology and poststructuralist philosophy. The masterclass consists of a lecture by Prof. Lynne Huffer (DOING GENDER Lecture Series at Utrecht University on June 13) and a research seminar at Leiden University (on June 14), in which Research MA and PhD students will have the opportunity to present their research and receive feedback from Prof. Lynne Huffer and other participating faculty of NOG and OZSW. The aim of the masterclass is twofold: First, this course will provide insights into state of the art research in the broader field of feminist philosophy and gender studies, with specific focus on questions of ethics in the Anthropocene. Second, the masterclass will also contribute to the participants’ academic and professional development by giving OZSW and NOG students the opportunity to engage with each other’s work.

About Lynne Huffer:
Lynne Huffer is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University. She holds a PhD in French Literature from the University of Michigan (1989) and has taught at Yale (1989-1998) and Rice (1998-2005) Universities. Her fields of study include feminist theory; queer theory; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies; modern French and francophone literature; literary theory; Foucault studies; and ethics. Her published work is widely cited and reviewed, and she is frequently invited to speak at both academic and non-academic venues. She has won numerous awards, including four major teaching prizes at Emory and at Rice. She also received the Modern Languages Association Florence Howe Award for feminist scholarship in English (2011), and her work is the topic of a recent symposium in differences: A Journal in Cultural Feminism (2016). She is the author of the books: Are the Lips a Grave? (2013); Mad for Foucault (2010); Maternal Pasts, Feminist Futures (1998); and Another Colette (1992); and numerous articles on feminist theory, queer theory, French literature, and ethics.

Registration for the masterclass

Both OZSW and NOG students, as well as other interested parties register via the OZSW for the masterclass: http://www.ozsw.nl/activity/8192/

All students and PhD candidates interested in participating in this masterclass apply with a short statement of interest (200-300 words) and participants willing to present on their research can submit an abstract of 300 words via the online registration form. Deadline for registration and presentation abstract is May 24, 2017.

The selection of presenters will be made on a first come first serve basis, provided that this will lead to equal representation of both OZSW and NOG students. In the occasion the number of students willing to present on their research exceeds the available time in the masterclass students will be offered the opportunity to submit an essay.

Costs: Participation is free for OZSW and NOG candidates, all others are required to pay a fee of 50 euros, which includes lunch and drinks.
Additional Readings: All enrolled participants will receive additional reading in preparation for Prof. Lynne Huffer’s visit.
Credits: for successfully completed studies (paper presentation and/or written paper), a certificate for 2 ECTS credits will be awarded by OZSW/NOG.

For questions please contact the organiser:
Nathanja van den Heuvel (n.a.e.van.den.heuvel@phil.leidenuniv.nl)