Featuring Josie Long, Alex Brew, Jonathan Dean, Anastasiya Hozyainova, and Maria do Mar Pereira
Launching Repudiating Feminism: Young Women in a neoliberal World (by Christina Scharff)
This informal panel discussion will include comedy, photography, personal stories, academic and policy research to talk about feminist changes, broadly conceived. Speaking to the 2012 Arts and Humanities Festival’s theme of metamorphoses, transformations and conversions, the panel will show pictures from the feminist activist scene (Alex Brew) and explore feminist transformations in political activism (Jonathan Dean), transnational policy research (Ana Hozyainova), comedy (Josie Long) and academia (Maria do Mar Pereira). Feminism has brought about a range of changes in all these spheres and has itself changed in this process. The panel will discuss these changes whilst also keeping a critical eye on continuities and the politics and power struggles involved in feminist transformations.
The event also launches Repudiating Feminism: Young Women in a neoliberal World (Ashgate, May 2012). Written by Dr Christina Scharff from the department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London, the book explores engagements with feminism and, more specifically, investigates what is at stake when women claim or reject a feminist identity. Gender equality is a widely shared value in many Western societies and yet, the mention of the term feminism frequently provokes unease, bewilderment or overt hostility. Repudiating Feminism sheds light on why this is the case.
The panel discussion, and book launch, will thus explore feminist transformations – as feminist changes and changing feminisms - across a range of sites, including activism, policy research, comedy, academia and young women’s talk.
Speakers
Alex Brew’s photography attempts to explore and intervene in gendered power relations and dynamics. It has been shown at universities, squats and galleries including RampART, Bergen Art Museums (Norway), RICH MIX’s recent Festival of Dangerous Ideas and Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and published in academic journals and magazines including Sleek XX/XY.
Jonathan Dean is Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Leeds, specializing in feminism, gender, critical theory and social movements. He is author of Rethinking Contemporary Feminist Politics (Palgrave 2010) and has published articles in Contemporary Political Theory, Political Quarterly, International Feminist Journal of Politics and Feminist Media Studies.
Anastasiya Hozyainova is analyst at and the founder of Civil Focus Research and Consultancy. She is specializing in the area of political and civil rights in fragile states. Her recent work includes research in Afghanistan on security sector reform; civil, social and economic rights; access to justice; and mainstreaming gender-sensitive policies. She is a co-founder of Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization (APPRO) based in Kabul, Afghanistan. She has a Master’s Degree in International Social Policy from Columbia University. She has worked on protection, gender mainstreaming, and civil and political rights in Afghanistan, Central Asia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Josie Long has been described as a unique voice in comedy. The twice ‘Best Comedy Show’ Nominee (2010 and 2011) and Best Newcomer Winner creates a buzz everywhere she goes with obsessive and ridiculous stories, leaving audiences smitten with her innocent wonder and loveable madness. She has embarked on 5 solo tours (about to begin her 6th) and has performed at the Montreal, Melbourne, Adelaide and New Zealand Comedy Festivals. Her second show Trying Is Good was released on DVD in 2008 and her third, All of the Planet’s Wonders (Shown in Detail) was broadcast as a radio series. Her shows are about fostering curiosity and enthusiasm, self-improvement and teaching yourself as much as is possible.
Maria do Mar Pereira is a lecturer in Gender Studies and Sociology at the University of Leeds, and an associate researcher in the Women's Studies research group of the Universidade Aberta, in Portugal. She has published widely on the epistemic status and the institutionalisation of women's and gender studies, the negotiation of gender among young people in schools, feminist pedagogy, current transformations in higher education, and issues of language difference and translation in social science research. She maintains an active involvement in feminist movements at local and international, grassroots and policy levels.
Christina Scharff is Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, neoliberalism and cultural work. Christina is author of Repudiating Feminism: young women in a neoliberal world and, with Rosalind Gill, co-editor of New Femininities: postfeminism, neoliberalism and subjectivity. Her publications have appeared in various international journals, including Sociology, Feminism & Psychology and The European Journal of Women’s Studies.
Image from the series ‘Feminist Outings’ © Alex Brew
To book, go to our booking page