The Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies (NOG; hosted at Utrecht University) in cooperation with her partners organises 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?

Thursday 9 March 2023, Prof. Emerita Nina Lykke (Linköping University, Sweden and Aarhus University, Denmark) will give the Doing Gender Lecture Figuring a Posthuman Ethics of Vibrant Death. 

In the morning of that same day the NOG organizes an accompanying seminar hosted by Nina Lykke on ‘Posthuman phenomenology, vibrant mourning and autophenomenographic writing’. The seminar is open for RMA and PhD students.

Morning Seminar: Posthuman phenomenology, vibrant mourning and autophenomenographic writing. Text-seminar
As an introduction to the discussion of the article ‘Co-becoming with diatoms: Between posthuman mourning and wonder in algae research’, I will present the posthuman phenomenology of mourning, which I developed in my recent book ”Vibrant Death” (2022), and the poetic-philosophic autophenomenography on which the book is based.

Reading:
Lykke, Nina (2019). ‘Co-becoming with diatoms: Between posthuman mourning and wonder in algae research’. In: Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 5(2), page 1-25. The article can be downloaded  from internet.

Afternoon Doing Gender Lecture: Figuring a Posthuman Ethics of Vibrant Death
The lecture will discuss the posthuman ethics and figuration of vibrant death which I developed in my recent book (”Vibrant Death”, 2022). I shall present the theoretical framework as well as the poetic-philosophical coining of the concept through poetry writing and practicing of spiritmattering , queerfeminine co-becoming with the watery assemblages with which my beloved lesbian life partner’s ashes are merged. Moreover, I shall bring my concept of vibrant death in eco-political and eco-ethical conversation with the concept of double-death, coined by environmental humanities scholar Deborah Bird Rose (2004); with the concept of double-death, Rose critically designates the ways in which Anthropocene necropolitics produce death as extinction, i.e. death that finally terminates rather than gives way to endlessly proliferating and vibrant life/death cycles. I suggest an ethics of vibrant death as a platform for reflecting on resistance to the mass-scale double-death, which Anthropocene necropolitics produces today.

Biography:

Nina Lykke is Professor Emerita of Gender Studies at Linköping University, Sweden, and Adjunct Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark. She* is also a queerfemme-inist philosopher-poet and writer. For many years, she* took part in the building of Feminist Studies in Scandinavia and Europe more broadly.  Her* current research interests include queer death studies, intersectionality, feminist posthumanism, queerfemme theory, Anthropocene necropolitics, decoloniality; queer ecologies; poetic writing. She* is co-founder of international network for Queer Death Studies, and author of numerous books and articles, among others the monographs Cosmodolphins (2000), Feminist Studies (2010) and Vibrant Death (2022 ).

Nina Lykke: Vibrant Death. A Posthuman Phenomenology of Mourning. London: Bloomsbury 2022.

Details of the day:

Seminar by Emerita Prof. Nina Lykke
Thursday March 9, 2023
Seminar: ‘Posthuman phenomenology, vibrant mourning and autophenomenographic writing. Text-seminar’
Time: 10.00 – 12.00 hrs.
Location: Utrecht
For who: RMA and PhD (1 ECTS for attending the seminar & Doing Gender Lecture)
Registration: Please apply for the seminar by sending an email to nog@uu.nl before March 6.

Doing Gender Lecture by Emerita Prof. Nina Lykke
Thursday March 9, 2023
Lecture: ‘Figuring a Posthuman Ethics of Vibrant Death’
Time: 16.30 – 18.00 hrs.
Location: Drift 25, 0.02
Chair: Kathrin Thiele