Karin Sellberg

Intersectionality and dissensus: a negotiation of the feminist classroom

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the potential feminist politics of teaching: is there a clear connection between feminism and teaching, and is there a particular feminist way of teaching? Through notions of engaged political pedagogy (as developed by bell hooks Jacques Ranciere), it proposes an intersectional and dissensual approach to teaching, as a primary way of practising feminist politics within academia.Design/methodology/approach – The paper sets out to explore the possibility of a feminist pedagogy of teaching. Drawing on works by social and feminists theorists as well as by radical pedagogues, it negotiates these various standpoints, finding similarities and differences, in order to formulate ways in which we can more fruitfully conceive of teaching as politics.Findings – The paper proposes that the classroom proves one of the most radical spaces for possibility within academia. Through an engaged, dissensual pedagogy, in which both students and teachers work together in mutual recognition of...

TRANSITIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS: From Gender Performance to Becoming Gendered11. This paper was presented in the symposium ‘Close Encounter: Rosi Braidotti—Metamorphosis, Transition, Affirmation’ at the International Association for Philosophy and Literature (IAPL) 32nd Annual Conference ‘Global Arts, Local Knowledge’, Melbourne, 30 June–5 July 2008.View all notes

In an article raising the question ‘Where Did We Go Wrong? Feminism and Trans Theory*Two Teams on the Same Side?’ (2006), Stephen Whittle requests the introduction of a space in which the projects of feminism and transgender studies can interact and coalesce. It is important to recognise that the introduction of a common space for feminist and transgender thought is not an uncomplicated task. The two schools inhabit similar discourses but relate to them in radically different and often opposing manners. I intend to investigate the complicated position that gendered subjectivity holds in the tempestuous relationship between a general concept of the queer and transgender in feminist and gender studies, and the subjective transgender experience related in transgender studies. I will conduct the analysis by means of fictional*predominantly literary and cinematic* transgender portrayals. This is not an arbitrary choice of medium. The fictional is in fact at the very core of the feminist/transgender chasm. Each film, drama and novel discussed here constructs a conception of gendered subjectivity, which is further complicated by the fact that it is, to some extent, a piece of fiction. The conflicting ideas of subjectivity within gender studies and feminism are often charged with a binary division between the essential/authentic and the constructed/fictional. I shall attempt to clarify what I am proposing. There are discrepancies between the different strands of feminism, as well as between feminism and transgender studies on the topic of gendered subjectivity. Secondand third-wave feminist works generally take opposing stances regarding the constructivity of gender. Second-wave feminist work often considers gender to be physically determined, in which any ‘fictional’ element of gender subjectivity is inconceivable, whereas third-wave feminism deems gender not to be physically determined, and thus a fictional element to be inevitable. Transgender thought usually disagrees with both of these approaches. According to the general conception within transgender studies, gender is indeed constructed to a certain degree. Constructedness in the case of a transgender person, however, does not infer an element of fictionality, if there is an authentic transgender experience of gender. This article will suggest that Rosi Braidotti’s project*as fourth-wave feminism or arguably as something outside of the linearity of conceptive ‘waves’*prepares a space in which feminism and gender studies and transgender studies may move away from the deessentialising ideals of 1980s and 1990s feminist thought. Braidotti’s stance is an affirmative one in which subjective gender experience is not oppositional to the recognition of a fictionality, literariness or performativity inherent in general gender norms. Before I return to the possibilities presented by Braidotti’s project in the construction of a common space for feminist, gender and transgender studies, I would like to open up

TRANSITIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS

In an article raising the question ‘Where Did We Go Wrong? Feminism and Trans Theory*Two Teams on the Same Side?’ (2006), Stephen Whittle requests the introduction of a space in which the projects of feminism and transgender studies can interact and coalesce. It is important to recognise that the introduction of a common space for feminist and transgender thought is not an uncomplicated task. The two schools inhabit similar discourses but relate to them in radically different and often opposing manners. I intend to investigate the complicated position that gendered subjectivity holds in the tempestuous relationship between a general concept of the queer and transgender in feminist and gender studies, and the subjective transgender experience related in transgender studies. I will conduct the analysis by means of fictional*predominantly literary and cinematic* transgender portrayals. This is not an arbitrary choice of medium. The fictional is in fact at the very core of the feminist/transgender chasm. Each film, drama and novel discussed here constructs a conception of gendered subjectivity, which is further complicated by the fact that it is, to some extent, a piece of fiction. The conflicting ideas of subjectivity within gender studies and feminism are often charged with a binary division between the essential/authentic and the constructed/fictional. I shall attempt to clarify what I am proposing. There are discrepancies between the different strands of feminism, as well as between feminism and transgender studies on the topic of gendered subjectivity. Secondand third-wave feminist works generally take opposing stances regarding the constructivity of gender. Second-wave feminist work often considers gender to be physically determined, in which any ‘fictional’ element of gender subjectivity is inconceivable, whereas third-wave feminism deems gender not to be physically determined, and thus a fictional element to be inevitable. Transgender thought usually disagrees with both of these approaches. According to the general conception within transgender studies, gender is indeed constructed to a certain degree. Constructedness in the case of a transgender person, however, does not infer an element of fictionality, if there is an authentic transgender experience of gender. This article will suggest that Rosi Braidotti’s project*as fourth-wave feminism or arguably as something outside of the linearity of conceptive ‘waves’*prepares a space in which feminism and gender studies and transgender studies may move away from the deessentialising ideals of 1980s and 1990s feminist thought. Braidotti’s stance is an affirmative one in which subjective gender experience is not oppositional to the recognition of a fictionality, literariness or performativity inherent in general gender norms. Before I return to the possibilities presented by Braidotti’s project in the construction of a common space for feminist, gender and transgender studies, I would like to open up

The subjective cut: sex reassignment surgery in 1960s and 1970s science fiction

This article considers the way in which ethical concerns about sex reassignment surgery and especially the research and clinical practice of the sexologist Dr John Money (1921–2006) is being negotiated in the 1960s and 1970s novels Myra Breckinridge and Myron by Gore Vidal and The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter. Drawing on the theories of gender and embodiment developed by Money, the article reads the novels as a critical response and discursive interaction with emergent sexological concepts.

The Feminine Subject

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