Feminist seminar
We invite you to take part in a special event – the Feminist Seminar. Gender in humanities – research perspectives. The seminar will take place on October 27 in the Institute of Polish Studies of the University of Wrocław.
FEMINIST SEMINAR
GENDER IN HUMANITIES – RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
The Institute of Polish Studies of the University of Wrocław, room 142
Wrocław 27.10.2023
10.00-10.45
Lecture held by dr hab. Izabela Morska, professor of the University of Gdańsk
Obszary odmienności after 20 years: from Maria Komornicka to Piotr Własta
The cusp of the 19th and 20th century was a moment when the first definitions of non-heteronormative identities began to appear. They are sometimes poetical (the myth of the androgyne revisits), and sometimes wishful (uranians, men souls in women bodies and vice versa – metempsychosis is of great value here). Simultaneously, in Berlin, which is not far away, non-heteronormative people are meeting, discussing, writing life stories, talking to psychologists (as it is a new field of knowledge) trying to define themselves. A double standard is applied to male and female representatives of both sexes, particularly to young people. A young man can work, study, travel and have affairs. A young woman does not have voting rights and goes abroad to study. If she comes from a landowning sphere, she becomes the guardian of the patriarchal order. What is possible to do with one’s talent in such a context, if one happened to be born female and does not want to play this heteronormative and patriarchal game? This lecture’s starting point will be Obszary odmienności: Rzecz o Marii Komornickiej, focusing on contemporary significant theories of identities and gender in fin de siècle.
Biographical note:
Izabela Morska – writer and lecturer in the Institute of English and American Studies at the University of Gdańsk. She is an author of incl. short stories (Śmierć i spirala 1992; Niebieska menażeria, 1997), novels (Absolutna amnezja, 1995; Alma, 2003), a drama (Księga Em, 2005), and poems (Madame Intuita, 2002). She has also released a journal of disease – Znikanie (2019). She was conducting the workshops about creative writing at the University of Warsaw and at the Study of Literature and Art at the Jagiellonian University. In 2018, she was honoured with Julian Tuwim’s Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 2020 she received the Pomeranian Literary Award. As a researcher, she deals with postcolonial and gender perspective. She has released incl. Obszary odmienności. Rzecz o Marii Komornickiej (2006), dedicated to the life and work of Maria Komornicka / Piotr ‘Odmieniec’ Własta, and Glorius Outlaws. Debt as a tool in contemporary postcolonial fiction (2016) – a monograph on debt in literature. She took part in numerous science festivals and conferences.
11.00-11.45
Lecture held by dr hab. Monika Świerkosz, professor of Jagiellonian University
‘Crippling’ the gender – several comments about (non)obvious consequences of gender studies and disability studies’ encounter
Starting from Rosemary Garland-Thomson’s words that ‘feminism made her disabled,’ I will try to outline the obvious and yet nonobvious entanglements of feminist theory and critical studies of disability. I will particularly focus on questions about gendered body and subject, which in feminist reflection were surprisingly rarely including the questions about experiencing disability. Expanding my argument with Lennard J. Davis’ remarks about the discursive processes of establishing norms, I will attempt to look at the disability as the missing element of the known triad race-class-gender. The performative element which, in a way that surprised me, creates the opportunity for going beyond the theoretical impasse resulting from the seizing between oppositional essentialism/biologism and constructivism. Also by pointing to queer affinity in a way of using disability as non-normativeness in Garland-Thomson and Davis’ works, I will rise questions on how to understand the theoretical and political volition to ‘cripple’ gender, as well as gender and feminist studies. To this end, I will also rise questions about the issue of ‘voice’ as an emancipatory but perhaps ableist phantasm.
Biographical note:
Monika Świerkosz – professor of the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. She is interested in the critical theory, feminist philosophy, especially in the area of the body, posthumanism and disability. She also works on issues related to women’s writing in a poetological and historical perspective. She is the executive editor of the ‘Wielogłos’ magazine, a co-founder of the Critical Questions Lab at the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. Since 2021, she is a member of the research platform ‘Disability Studies in Eastern Europe – reconfigurations.’ She has published in incl. ‘Teksty Drugie,’ ‘Pamiętnik Literacki,’ and ‘Zadra.’ She is the author of the following books: W przestrzeniach tradycji. Proza Izabeli Filipiak i Olgi Tokarczuk w sporach o literaturę, kanon i feminizm (2014), Arachne i Atena. Literatura, polityka i kobiecy klasycyzm (2017), and a co-editor of several collective publications. She has collaborated as a research consultant and dramaturgical assistant in the creation of two plays addressing disability: Midsummer Night’s Dream (directed by J. Skrzywanek, J. Sobczyk, the Contemporary Theatre in Szczecin) and Doctor Tulp’s Anatomy Lesson (directed by A. Skwarczyńska, Cricoteka, Kraków).
12.00-12.45
Lecture held by dr hab. Aleksandra Derra, professor of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Criticality, care, community. Feminist interventions in science
Bruno Latour argued that technologies for presenting knowledge play an important role in the process of stabilising scientific knowledge and making it credible (Latour 2012). Strategies such as visually emphasising and highlighting certain aspects as well as omitting and overlooking others, sanction and stabilise certain patterns of thinking about science, its functioning, and research results (Doerk et al. 2013). Critical theories in the humanities treat issues such as egalitarianism, diversity, authorship, social impact (D’Ignazio, Klein 2022) as essential elements of responsible knowledge production. In a long time, feminist researchers point out who is included in dominant modes of knowledge production and communication and how they are included, as well as who is excluded from it (Derra 2013, Adamiak, Derra and Wachowski 2020). During this lecture, I will argue that creating scientific knowledge today, for cognitive and ethical reasons it is important not to lose sight of such important values for today’s science as criticality, care and community. As the comment of a critical view of science, I will discuss several examples of the representation of femininity and women in selected scientific disciplines. Given the importance of communicating scientific discoveries in the form of presenting data, I follow Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein’s proposal and discuss their proposed rules for visualisation which take into account a feminist revision of representational strategies in science. These include moving beyond binary divisions, embracing diversity and context, exploring power relations and empowering excluded groups, legitimising embodiment and affectivity, and making work visible (D’Ignazio, Klein 2020, 2022).
Adamiak, M., Derra, A., Wachowski, W. 2020. Teorie feministyczne. Tradycje i perspektywy. http://avant.edu.pl/teor-fem D’Ignazio, Catherine, Klein, Lauren. 2022. Feminism Data Vizualization. https://dspace.ceid.org.tr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/955/Feminist_Data_Visualization.pdf
D’Ignazio, Catherine., Klein, Lauren. 2020. Data Feminism. MIT Press. https://datafeminism. mitpress.mit.edu/pub/frfa9szd/release/6
Derra, A. 2013. Kobiety (w) nauce. Problem płci we współczesnej filozofii nauki i w praktyce badawczej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
Doerk, Marian, Feng, Patrick, Collins, Christopher, Carpendale, Sheelagh. 2013. Critical InfoVis: Exploring the Politics of Visualization. CHI 2013 Extended Abstracts, https://mariandoerk.de/criticalinfovis/altchi2013.pdf Latour, Bruno. 2012. Wizualizacja i poznanie. Zrysowywanie rzeczy razem. AVANT, Volume III. http://avant.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/T2012-wizualizacja-i-poznanie.pdf
Biographical note:
Aleksandra Derra – philosopher, translator, philologist. Head of the Department of Practical Philosophy of the Institute of Philosophy of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Co-founder and supervisor of postgraduate gender studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. She deals with gender in science and contemporary feminist philosophy of science, as well as science and technology studies. She researches the phenomena of language, subjectivity, corporeality and embodiment in contemporary philosophy and cognitive sciences. She is an author of the books: Filozofia, nauka, feminizm. Wybór Tekstów (2022); Kobiety (w) nauce. Problem płci we współczesnej filozofii nauki i w praktyce badawczej (2013); co-editor of Polish Science and Technology Studies in the New Millennium (2022); Niewidzia(l)ne. Kobiety i historia Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu (2020). She has translated and edited the following books: How like a leaf (interview with Donna Haraway); Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference; Bruno Latour, Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory; Rosi Braidotti, Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory.
13.00-14.00 Discussion with Guests, moderated by mgr Ewelina Adamik, dr Katarzyna Lisowska
Translated by Monika Słupianek (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice
