Gender & Affect
Publication
In February 2022, the anthology by Omar Kasmani, Matthias Lüthjohann, Sophie Nikoleit, Jean-Baptiste Pettier (eds.) Nothing Personal?! Essays on Affect, Gender and Queerness was published by b_books. Available in open access.
Abstract: Personal, but not a personal thing: affect is at the heart of some of the most pressing issues of social and political life. If how and what we feel indeed shape and form the ways we live and vice versa, how does his dynamic relate to the experience of gender and queerness? With insights from cultural studies, the social sciences as well as artistic practice, the essays in this book delve into the manifold and messy dimensions of public feeling and emotion.
to the book by b_books.
The working group Gender and Affect was initiated as a way to embrace the emergence of gender as a major analytical category in the humanities and social sciences, which in recent decades has allowed scholars to explore the construction of social norms and the sexual organization of society in new and fruitful ways. Among the ones often emphasized are socially constructed, gender-specific modalities of affective expressions, which are shaped by culture, social milieu, intertextualities and history. Altogether, this analytical lens allows for a better comprehension of the ways in which gender norms shape individual affective experiences and emotional lives, and also the manner in which these are socially expressed and perceived. Through its course, members of the working group discussed the queries brought forth by feminist standpoints, and their affective consequences when it comes to norms and to the distance of people and social groups to these norms.
The working group also led to a two-days conference, which was held in May 2019 at Freie Universität Berlin, and is now working on a collective book project. Following the aims of the conference, the book aims at crossing academic borders in intellectually and artistically fruitful ways. Connecting to queerfeminist research and activism, this volume sets out to follow three lines of flight: genealogical and historical questions, the normativies of gender’s affective life and the thorny issues of methodology. In conjunction with these, artistic interventions will embrace photographic, literary and dialogical modes of inquiry. These contributions not only bring to the fore activist perspectives, they also demonstrate how important questions of form, genre and style are to the practices of research.
Coordination:
Participants:
J.C. Lanca
Sophie Nikoleit (TP B03)
Omar Kasmani (TP C03)
Matthias Lüthjohann (TP A03)