When differently marginalised – human and non-human – bodies face new struggles of survival in the rapidly liquifying world, the course urgently invites to interconnect critical tools of gender studies and feminist “blue” humanities to challenge the dominant Western metaphysical tradition and crystallise more just & liveable futurities.
Following Astrida Neimanis’s urgent hydrofeminist invitation to think of ourselves and other (human and non-human) bodies as interconnected by water (2012; 2017), we will think of what might becoming a body of water offer to feminism, its theories and practices. How may insights of gender studies and feminist “blue” humanities productively mingle at the theoretical, conceptual, methodological, affective and activist levels?
Furthermore, how may feminist academic research ally with arts to care for bodies of and in water? We will mobilise gender both as a subject matter and a methodological tool for attending to power structures, and various interlocked forms of gender essentialisms and environmental – specifically, water-related – injustice. We will trace histories and material effects of body/mind & nature/culture dichotomies and reimagine ways of social differentiation towards more liveable futurities for human and non-human bodies. Starting from classic feminist text and working through a range of decolonial, queer, anti-racist, Indigenous and other accounts, the course traces the critical work bodies of water and various aqueous processes (liquidity, dissolution, crystallisation) have been always doing in feminist theory. What forms of this critical work must be urgently amplified?
The course is interdisciplinary and is open to participants with previous experience/interest in gender studies, environmental humanities, ecology, history, sociology, anthropology, political science, cultural studies and arts. The course particularly welcomes participants interested in the interdisciplinarity of learning & knowledge production. Participants based at art academies and those undertaking their degrees in gender studies, environmental and other critical humanities are equally welcome.
- Teacher: Anastasia Khodyreva