Bonus: I Went to a Really Cool Conference in London with My Professor – Feminism, Fascism, and the Future
Grab your passport and an oat milk latte and join us at the Transnational Anti-Gender Movements and Resistance Conference! This past February, Laurie and Harper travelled to the London School of Economics to engage with other thinkers, activists, academics, and feminists fighting the anti-gender movement across the globe. What a time we had! Hear all about it and maybe learn a thing or two in our first mini episode!
About the Conference:
The conference was part of a series of workshops through the research group and network, Transnational ‘Anti-Gender’ Movements and Resistance: Narratives and Interventions. It was co-organized by the London School of Economics (LSE) Department of Gender Studies and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Centre for Gender Studies.
The research group: “This new global research network maps the narrative building blocks – the political grammars, conceptual vocabularies, rhetoric, figures, and temporalities – of both ‘anti-gender ideology’ interventions and the political struggles and solidarities engendered in resistance… The research project and network is led by Clare Hemmings, Professor of Feminist Theory and Sumi Madhok, Professor of Political Theory and Gender Studies of the Department of Gender Studies, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.”
Clare Hemmings: “I have two main areas of research focus – feminist and queer studies – and am particularly interested in thinking through the relationship between these, as well as the ways in which both fields have been institutionalized at national and international levels. This interest has led me to think about how participants in these fields tell stories about their history as well as current form, and to explore how such stories resonate with (rather than against) more conservative agendas. I am particularly concerned with the ways in which ideas travel (or do not) across geographical and temporal borders, and shift when considered from a black feminist or lesbian critical perspective.
Sumi Madhok: “Sumi Madhok is Professor of Political Theory and Gender Studies and Head of the Department of Gender Studies at LSE. Quite unusually, she is a feminist political theorist with an ethnographic sensibility. Her work combines theoretical, conceptual and philosophical investigations with detailed ethnographies of the lived experiences, political subjectivation, and political struggles for rights and justice, specifically, in South Asia.”
Keynote Speakers in the Episode:
Tooba Syed (@Tooba_Sd) is the secretary of the socialist-feminist women collective and organisation, Women Democratic Front. Syed has regional expertise in Pakistan and South Asia and eight years of experience working as a feminist researcher, trainer, campaigner, writer and teacher in the areas of gender studies, gender-based violence, feminist education and climate change adaptation.
Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School and former Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley. They were the Founding Director of the Critical Theory Program and International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs at UC Berkeley. Butler is active in gender and sexual politics, human rights, anti-war politics, and serves on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Click here to listen to the full keynote panel on YouTube.
Photos from our Trip:
