Wokism, the facts n°25 - February 2024
Conferences and events
Intersecting gender and class in the social sciences
Although in the minority, investigations working at the intersection of power relations are developing without, however, revealing their workings and empirical strings. Thus, epistemological and methodological issues are marginalized and little investigated. What methodological tools should be chosen to deploy or question an analytical focus or a theoretical approach intertwining gender and class? What can ethnography, quantitative approaches, and history contribute in this area? What practical and theoretical difficulties do they pose? For example, what lessons can be drawn from the methodological point of view of work on gender and the working classes (Hamel and Siméant 2005) on the one hand, and gender in the upper classes (Benquet and Laufer 2016) on the other? In other words, can we analyze women from the upper classes and those from the working classes in the same way?
Talking with the dead, art and science in the face of “other voices”
“Spirit, are you there?”: rituals of contact with the Invisible, from the ancient Necromanteion to current ghost hunts (Romain Jallet) • Talking with Monique Wittig. Queer rituals and performance of mourning (Eugénie Peron-Douté) • Hypnosis and specters in moving images (Antoni Collot)
Conference: “A right to the generic masculine? The language of law through the prism of gender”, International Days of Legal History, Lausanne, 2023
General, abstract, impersonal, sometimes universal… these are the qualifiers traditionally associated with the language of law. However, while some idioms such as English have a true neutral grammatical category, the French language is extremely marked by binarity. While recent work highlights the defeminization of the language undertaken in the 17th century, the generic masculine remains the only grammatically accepted form for writing texts. A hiatus therefore already appears, that of considering as “neutral” a “masculine”, however generic it may be and this raises initial questions: does this conception of the neutral have
repercussions on the law? Furthermore, gender studies, which legal doctrine is beginning to take hold of, demonstrate that the law produces differentiations and discriminations and that behind the language of the law are hidden representations and stereotypes, particularly of gender.
A Queer Middle Ages? Second Anachronism: Non-Binarity (Lausanne)
Second anachronism: non-binarity : From the Passion of Saint Eugene Virge: the Franco-Provençal writing of the legend of Eugénie de Rome, a transvestite saint (13th century) • Changing gender in the medieval epic: from transvestism to metamorphosis • Emotions in the medieval trials of people placed on the margins of society
Confluences of social inequalities in French-speaking literature and media: intersectionality from the perspective of literary studies (Passau, Germany)
The concept of intersectionality is particularly conducive to a reassessment of the interweaving of power relations between the past and the present. Born from the observation of the existence of multiple discriminations in society, its origins date back to Black Feminism in the 1970s, which takes into account the interdependencies between racism and sexism in society. This term, which was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), is inspired by the visual metaphor of the intersection of streets. Since then, the notion of intersectionality describes different forms of multiple discrimination in society. In addition to the categories of race, class and gender, other criteria of social difference and diversity, such as age, religion or disability, have been added. As Winker/Degele point out in 2009, intersectionality is a 'rather rudimentarily developed theoretical approach' (11), which has also only recently been taken into account in literary studies (cf. Krass 2014: 17; cf. Klein/Schnicke 2014).
Lesbian motherhoods and their imaginaries in Spanish theater. With Gabriela Cordone and Marie-Pierre Rosier (seminar “Literature à l’oblique”, at the Sorbonne)
The next session of the seminar “Literature in the Oblique” will take place on Friday February 16, 2024 from 18 p.m. to 20 p.m., at the Sorbonne University Research Center. This session will be devoted to the issue of lesbian motherhood and its imaginaries in Spanish theater. The right to assisted reproduction for lesbian couples, in force in Spain since 2006 (Ley 14/2006), has inspired various theatrical creations around lesbian motherhood. Our presentation will seek to share some reflections on formal and thematic aspects, such as the role of literary genres and traditional and heteronormative structures in the construction of the works studied, the place of realities on the ground or the rhetoric around lesbian motherhood.
Calls for contributions
Save the world or save yourself? Thinking about prefigurative commitments in a neoliberal context
The conference aims to open a space for discussion for researchers working on prefigurative commitments. From an approach that considers both progressive and conservative activisms, and that is interested in the complexity of the implementation of prefigurative practices, we propose to ask the following questions: what ideas and/or beliefs underlie prefigurative practices? What forms do these practices take according to heterogeneous socio-political contexts and diverse class, gendered, sexualized and racialized trajectories? What do neoliberal injunctions do to these prefigurative commitments? And finally, how can we investigate these practices as closely as possible, by definition difficult to access because they are deployed in private and semi-private spaces, within a University that is increasingly subject to neoliberal injunctions?
Trans, queer and “third gender” people in Muslim countries
Today, despite certain prohibitions, more and more trans people and queer display their gender identity in Muslim societies. Historically, beyond the importance of gender binarity and their spatial separation in Muslim countries, there are, against all expectations, in this region of the world many figures of the "third gender", according to the term used by the anthropologist Gilbert Herdt. By "third gender" in the Muslim world, we generally think of the eunuch of the Ottoman harems, but many other figures exist in the Islamic context, varying according to the countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Egypt, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Albania, etc.) and the periods. Since the vocabulary and realities are plural according to the countries and periods, the specificities of these figures and the names that designate them will be analyzed as well as the ways specific to these groups or individuals to designate themselves. This issue will examine these figures collectively as a group (hijrah, trans, queer…), specifying their role and social status, but it will also focus on these figures as individuals.
Stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination (Educatio Nova magazine)
We invite you to contribute to issue 10 of the review Education Nova devoted to “Stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination (language, literature, culture, history, media, education”.
Proposals must fall within one of the following thematic areas:
– types of prejudice and discrimination (e.g. racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia);
– the origin of prejudices and discrimination;
– aggression (hostile or instrumental);
– harassment as a modern form of aggression (bullying, cyberbullying);
– the oppositions: one's own vs. the foreigner, one's own vs. the other, the natural vs. the degenerate, the normative vs. the non-normative, the civilized vs. the savage;
– reductionist treatments (labeling, stigmatization, stereotyping, dehumanization, depersonalization);
– hate speech;
– exclusion strategies (the rhetoric of contempt, of threat);
– lies, slander and manipulation of the meaning of words;
– the limits of freedom of expression;
– the opposition between altruism and selfishness;
– femininity and masculinity in the media, literature, culture.
In the Varia section, we also accept texts that do not address the main subject of the issue, but which fall within the field of interest of our journal.
Francophone postcolonial memories: returns, rewritings and complexities
The change in theoretical and critical approaches to French-language fiction, and in particular the drift of language seen as a stigma (over-consciousness, insecurity, diglossia) towards more identity-based and political, even militant, concerns (Provenzano, 2011), has resulted in the proliferation of several themes which, rather than questioning the present context, revisit memories based on the complexity and current identity potential, and which postcolonial studies have taken up (Beniamino, 1999; Moura, 2005).
Thus, French-speaking literary (inter)texts revisit and reinterpret canonical texts, both French and peripheral (Mathieu-Job, 2004; Panaïté and Klekovkina, 2017) and produce postcolonial fictional replicas where the (post)memorial question is very present, and sometimes assumes a globalized deployment.
In fact, in French-language works, the relationship to memory and the past (shared or not) questions institutional historical narratives, generating tensions and rereadings based on the repercussions and issues readable in the poetics of P. Chamoiseau, A. Djebar, A. Kourouma, W. N'Sondé, M. Mbougar, for example.
Furthermore, the memories fictionalized by French-language texts are crossed by dramas and mobilize intersecting representations inscribed in space (Gilroy, 1993) based on returns, rewritings and complex and palimpsestic circulations of the consequences of the past.
We therefore invite researchers who are interested and challenged by the issue of memory in French-language literature to submit a proposal for a contribution (article) in one of the following areas in French-language literature:
· (Post)memorial returns;
· Memorial and identity intersections;
· Rewritings and reconfigurations of canonical and mythical texts;
· Postcolonial readings of the present and the past;
· Francophone Literature and Area Studies;
· Memory and World Literature.
Gender and Food
The crossing of the food et Gender studies is a field that has not yet received much research, even if the work is beginning to multiply (as demonstrated by the call for " Gender and Food from Antiquity to the Present Day » of the magazine Genre & History). This intersection allows us to analyze the way in which food practices and symbols participate in the gendered construction of identities as well as the way in which norms, power, gender and food are intertwined. The American anthropologist Carole Counihan was a pioneer in the field (The Anthropology of Food and Body. Gender, Meaning and Power, 1999), highlighting persistent gender inequalities in the food sector, while women traditionally have the responsibility of feeding others. Cultural objects and imaginaries constitute an excellent field of examination to examine these articulations in their issues and modalities. The intersection of gender and food thus allows us to analyze how literature, the arts, the stage, and language seize nourishing semantics, whether there is consolidation or transgression of gender norms, how gender is performed there, and what new aesthetics, ethics, or thoughts result from it.
Queer and trans* identities in the French-speaking world (Calgary, Alberta)
Transgender and queerness are currently particularly sensitive topics, requiring a multidimensional approach while respecting the vulnerability of the people concerned. As Arnaud Alessandrin and Karine Espineira note, “[t]ransgender […] is a puzzle of contradictory experiences and observational scenes […]” (2015: 76), thus highlighting the multiple, subjective and contrasting character of the experience of trans* people. It follows from such an observation that queer and trans* life paths encompass a vast range of literary, artistic and media creations, reflecting both bodily and spiritual experiences. The interpretation of these cultural artefacts varies from one French-speaking country to another, influenced by their distinct geopolitical positions and unique histories. We wish to clarify here that we use the terms “queer” and “trans*” to refer to transsexual, genderqueer, intersex people, as well as any individual who does not conform to binary gender constructs, cisnormativity or heteronormativity.
Publications
Race and body in the colonial ordinary (special issue)
The ambition of this issue is to take a step back from a history of race, often captured at the level of scientific, literary and photographic representations, to focus on the way in which the difference of bodies is constructed, interpreted, administered and negotiated in a colonial context within the framework of interactions and ordinary practices. After an inventory of the rich historiography devoted to the "colonization of bodies" and the incorporation of colonial domination, this issue offers a new reading anchored in practices and daily life, based on case studies located in Africa or Asia, which describe the way in which social and racial categorizations and hierarchies are put into play in a very concrete way in imperial and colonial societies through the bodies of the actors. The debate on Ann Laura Stoler's book (Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, 2002) is an opportunity to return to the reception of postcolonial themes in France.
Sextant, No. 40: Queer Intellectuals. Collaborations, 1880-1920 (dir. Michael Rosenfeld)
Colette, André Gide, Natalie Clifford Barney and Georges Eekhoud: so many queer intellectuals who did not hesitate to talk about their loves and defend them in their writings at the end of the 19th century.e and at the beginning of the XXe century. Their commitment does not form in a vacuum, but is part of a whole society called "marginal" at the time, whose members find themselves through their activism in favor of the right to love freely. This issue of Sextant analyzes the ways in which queer intellectuals collaborate and help each other in the European context of the Belle Époque in their enterprises of creation and dissemination of their publications. The studies collected here explore the multiple forms that their collaborations took as well as the different representations of queer loves in literature and intellectual life to which their works and their exchanges gave rise. In doing so, this issue brings to light the little-known journeys and commitments of queer intellectuals and also questions the construction of new forms of expression of a shared sexual identity.
The production of reassuring spaces in heteronormative territory: queer associative spatialities in medium-sized cities
In France, local queer associations participate, through their activities, in offering individuals from sexual and gender minorities spaces that are more or less removed from heteronormativity and that promote self-affirmation. These spaces, which can be considered reassuring spaces, are nevertheless little studied outside of large urban centers, particularly in medium-sized cities, thus raising the question of queer possibilities in these territories. Based on a precise census of associations on a regional scale, and associative activities collected on the social networks of three structures established in medium-sized cities in the north of France, the results show the spatial strategies implemented by associations to establish their presence in territories where queer circles are often underdeveloped and visible. Through various local partnerships and by investing in spaces sometimes perceived as heterosexual, these associations, through their shifting practices, challenge the supposed sexual binarity of places. Furthermore, associative spatialities, via the relationships maintained with local populations and public authorities, inform us about the acceptance of sexual and gender minorities, and participate in establishing a geography of queer possibilities.
Gender diversity: understanding the evolution of categories and norms
Gender systems in many societies around the world are traversed by two phenomena
significant. The first is the gradual transformation and diversification of identities and
gender expressions. One of the main aspects of this is the increased visibility of trans people and
non-binary people and mobilizations relating to their rights, which have made possible, in some
contexts and to varying degrees, social, administrative and legal recognition. The second
phenomenon is the multiplication of anti-trans demonstrations, which are gaining momentum due to their
sensational media coverage. In the wake of the “anti-gender” mobilizations that are
are deployed in several regions of the world, notably in the United States and Europe (Kuhar and
Paternotte 2018), trans people have become the target allowing certain groups of
conservative right to reaffirm a supposed “naturalness” of the binary gender system and thus,
to condemn LGBT+ lives and realities. These controversies, which border on moral panic,
constitute one of the important elements of the contemporary context in which are articulated and
negotiate the lived realities that are described in this issue dedicated to gender diversity. However, it
It is first of all a question of starting from the observation that gender has never been limited to the categories "man" and
"woman" and that a plurality of social positions and gendered identities have been found for a long time
long time in many societies.
WHAT FEMINIST PRACTICES OF NON-MIXEDNESS?
The objective of this non-mixing is then threefold. First of all,
It is a space in which it is easier to speak, the latter being largely monopolized by the
men in mixed spaces [Jacquemart and Masclet,
2017]. It is also a tool for awareness raising.
feminist, a place for exchanging individual experiences
allowing each person to realize that what they are experiencing
daily life is shared by others, thus embodying the slogan "the private is political". Finally, non-mixedness makes it possible to make gender inequalities visible and to denounce them.
Inclusive writing beyond the midpoint – CNRS Le Journal
Inclusive language is the subject of lively controversy, but also of scientific work which shows that its use is effective in reducing certain stereotypes induced by the systematic use of the neutral masculine.
Where are the women in a language where the masculine gender can designate both the masculine and the universal generic neuter? Indeed, if you read here: "Researchers are interested in gender discrimination", do you understand "researchers" as "men who contribute to research" or as "people who contribute to research"? Impossible to decide.
Items
Raewyn Connell, Masculinities: Hegemony, Inequality, Coloniality
In 1985, Raewyn Connell published a highly influential article, “Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity,” which first addressed the theme of the plurality of masculinities and the notion of hegemonic masculinity, which refers to the practices used by a majority of men to ensure their dominant position and the subordination of women. This article can be found here, introduced and contextualized by Connell herself. It was followed by a 2016 article, in which the sociologist revisited the concept of hegemonic masculinity in the postcolonial context of globalization, which is one of crushing income inequality, profound power imbalances, neoliberal rapacity, and violent antagonisms around race, nation, gender, sexuality, and religion.
LIVED EXPERIENCES OF GENDER AND RACE
How can we consider the subjective and bodily effects produced by sexism and racism? How do the categories of race and gender organize ordinary experience – including in its non-reflexive, affective or intimate dimensions – and in what way
How do these measures configure the relationship to the world, to others and to oneself? What normative and political implications are brought to light when race and gender relations are considered, not as one-off events whose violence would be paroxysmal, but as structures of daily or banal experience?
By elucidating the lived experience of race and gender relations from the perspective of those affected, the critical phenomenology has asserted itself for several years as a radical renewal of the issues that guide political and social philosophy. It draws on the founding works of Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon, to propose a rereading of the phenomenological canon – its modes of description, its objects, methods and concepts – and to consider the shifts that minority experiences induce.
Florence Lotterie, The Genre of Enlightenment (re-edited)
Does the Enlightenment have a gender? Does woman disguise philosophy? In the 18th centurye century, the figure of the "woman philosopher" questions the conditions of access to philosophy and is articulated with an imaginary of the difference between the sexes, between the obsession with a deleterious confusion and the quest for a model of harmony.
The imposture of work: de-androcentric work to emancipate it
Rethinking work from free and invisible work.
Today, the definition of work is still constructed from a masculine subject, and associated with remuneration, employment, production. What if we reversed our perspective, as Maud Simonet invites us to do here, to rethink this notion from this other work, mainly carried out by women, on which our society and our economy are also based?
Whether it is domestic, associative, linked to care, whether it is voluntary work, internships or civic engagement: so many activities which are not considered as work but would relate to values - love, passion, citizenship, integration...
From then on, another perspective opens up that requires us to think jointly about paid work and free work, visible work and invisible work, by questioning the boundaries of work and their uses. A perspective that shows us that, if not everything is necessarily work, everything, or almost everything, can be appropriated as such by capitalism. De-centering work thus means giving ourselves the means to rethink exploitation and renew the struggles for the emancipation of work.
Mrs. De Murat, Queer Fairy Tales
At the end of the 17th century, Madame de Murat was a young aristocrat pursued and imprisoned for lesbianism for nearly thirteen years. She also invented, with other fellow novelists, the literary form of the fairy tale. Within this collective of storytellers, she was the one who most claimed female solidarity and the sisterhood of a band of intrepid and transgressive "modern fairies". She was also the one who most inventively experimented with a writing of confusion and undifferentiation. A true queer gesture, where nothing is fixed, where the magic of metamorphoses lays bare the making of sexual or gender identities. Where, thanks to the playful filter of fairy tales, Madame de Murat succeeded in converting her sexual and social marginality into a formidable creative force.
"Victor-Lévy Beaulieu Notebooks, volume 8", "Queering VLB. Reading Beaulieu against Beaulieu?", collective work
This 8e number of Victor-Lévy Beaulieu Notebooks, "Queering VLB. Reading Beaulieu against Beaulieu?", the result of a study day in September 2021, aims to analyze the essential work of the writer from Trois-Pistoles based on queer theories, an approach that postulates that an individual's sexuality and gender are not determined exclusively by their biological sex, but also by their socio-cultural environment, their life history and/or their personal choices. It is in this sense that VLB's often troubling work, a source of "countless and dizzying contradictions", appears particularly fertile. Under the direction of Karine Rosso and Kevin Lambert (who devoted part of his master's degree in literature to the author of Jos Knowing), between a scatological analysis of gender in VLB (Kevin Lambert) and a joyful and tangent exploration of the links between sex and sovereignty in the Beaulieu "character-work" (Dalie Giroux), this stimulating file opens several doors. The digital version is available for free on the publisher's website.
Theses
The mutations of LGBT asylum volunteering. From a gay cause to its intersectional reframing
Associative work in support of people in migration situations has developed in a context of intensification of repressive policies against migrants but also activists. Associations that specifically help LGBTI people occupy a particular position in this field, at the crossroads between gay and lesbian movements and the space of the cause of foreigners. This thesis focuses on one of these associations, ARDHIS, based on a long ethnographic survey (2016-2022). It analyzes the transformations of voluntary work that are due to developments within the associative space. It is based on active participant observation, since the researcher's activist involvement has informed her research: this work therefore includes an important reflexive dimension, since the story told is also that of a journey within the association. The first part of the thesis shows how voluntary work has long been defined by a form of identification, based on sexual orientation, between gay volunteers and asylum seekers who were most often male. The truth of the homosexual identity of the latter, justifying asylum, was the key for the former. Sexual orientation, understood as a work skill, then founds the specificity of the association. The second part focuses on the questioning of this model within the association itself, at the cost of significant intergenerational tensions: the rejuvenation of volunteers is accompanied by their feminization.
Urban Architecture, Gender Mainstreaming and the Impact of Feminism
This thesis explores the possibilities of an urban architecture attentive to gender issues, under an intersectional feminist prism. Since the end of the 1990s, experiments in this direction have begun to become more and more numerous, starting with the pioneering example of Vienna, which has become the city of reference par excellence. This thesis is particularly interested in Parisian experiments, while maintaining a comparative vision with projects in other European cities. As axes influencing urban architecture, public policies and activism are also explored, at the French and Italian level. Their contribution highlights the potentialities of symbolic and material reinvention of urban architecture, shifting from the heteropatriarchal system towards more inclusion and spatial justice. The fundamental questions of this work are based on the influence of feminist theories in the professional practice of architects and urban planners, on their role in the transformation of approaches to the city and urban planning, as well as in the transformation of architectural and urban aesthetics. Through a situated, reflexive and interdisciplinary methodological approach, from the disciplines of architecture and urban planning, the fieldwork carried out had the objective of searching for trends, developments and constants in gendered urban architecture projects. Taking into account the temporal evolution of mentalities on gender, and the increasingly deep awareness of feminist issues, this thesis positions itself with a critical approach towards Gender Mainstreaming.
Being a millennial and a Muslim in the United States: the mediatization of Islam on social networks
The thesis topic focuses on young American Muslims ("millennials") and social networks. The research is based on the hypothesis that American Muslims now use social networks (platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Twitter) to express themselves "freely" about religion in general, and Islam in particular. Failing to share their ideas on TV sets, talk shows, or even the press, they use digital platforms to communicate, throughout the world, about Islam (theology and practices), to combat Islamophobia and widespread stereotypes about Muslims, to express themselves on taboo subjects that are rarely discussed within the Muslim community, such as homosexuality, spirituality, the place of women in the community, but also to participate in social struggles (against racism, domestic and police violence, discrimination, etc.). I selected a few American Muslim influencers to analyze the type of content shared with the public as well as the extent of their influence. By using their influence (number of followers and interaction with Internet users and other well-known personalities), these people could, over time, contribute to social change but also to debates on Islam. The way others perceive and sometimes practice Islam could differ depending on exposure to the content and ideas disseminated by these influencers.
