An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Joan Haran (IASH-SSPS Research Fellow; Cardiff University)
Revisiting and revisioning feminisms: archives and speculation
In this talk, I play with the idea of repetition with a difference in relation to the contribution that feminisms have to make to tackling pressing contemporary challenges. I refer to multiple feminist archives: the curated collections that make up formal archives; the feminist fictions that constitute informal archives of their moments of production; and the archives embodied by feminist academics and activists who have stayed with the trouble over the duration of their lives and careers. I examine the ways that contemporary feminists have been inspired by their feminist forebears and seek to recirculate or depart from their work in order to inspire new iterations of feminist thought and activism. By linking archives and speculation, I want to draw attention to the creative reuse of archives as part of a project of world-building. I will discuss interventions by the ecofeminist and speculative fiction writer Starhawk, by the writers and activists adrienne maree brown and Walidah Imarisha who edited the collection Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction by Social Justice Activists, and my own engagement with the archives and material practices (re)circulated by these counterpublic intellectuals and other feminist writers, artists and activists. In doing so, I will stress the importance of revisiting, revisioning and repetition with difference in order to combat collective amnesia and cynicism about the possibilities of social transformation.
Haran, J. “‘Why the Compost Toilets?’: Ecofeminist (Re)Generations at the Horizone Ecovillage”, in Eschle, C. and Bartlett, A (eds) Feminism and Protest Camps: Entanglements, Critiques and Re-Imaginings. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Forthcoming 2023.
Haraway, D. Staying with the Trouble. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2016.
Imarisha, W. and brown, a.m. Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories for Social Justice Movements. Oakland, CA and Edinburgh: AK Press, 2015.
Starhawk. The Spiral Dance. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1999.
---The Fifth Sacred Thing. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1994.
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81322391722
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