February 16 at 4 pm | 112 Wurster Hall Renowned scholar Sara Ahmed’s lecture explores the queerness of use as well as uses of queer. It begins with a reflection on the gap between the intended function of an object and how an object is used as a gap with a queer potential. The lecture does not simply affirm that potential, but offers an account of how institutional worlds are built to enable some uses (and users) more than others. To bring out the queerness of use thus requires a world-dismantling effort. The lecture reflects on how dismantling is framed as damage and considers the relationship between the creativity of queer use, violence and survival. Sara Ahmed is an independent scholar and writer. Her work is shaped by a close engagement with feminist and queer of color scholarship and activism. She has recently completed a book, What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use, and has begun working on an empirical research project on complaint. Her publications include: Living a Feminist Life (2017) Willful Subjects (2014) On Being Included (2012) The Promise of Happiness (2010) Queer Phenomenology (2006) The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2014, 2004) Strange Encounters (2000) Differences that Matter (1998). The lecture is free and open to the general public. This event is co-sponsored by: Arcus Endowment of the College of Environmental Design, Arts Research Center, Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Queer Cultural Center, The Program in Critical Theory, Center for Race and Gender, and Gender and Women’s Studies
February 16 at 4 pm | 112 Wurster Hall Renowned scholar Sara Ahmed’s lecture explores the queerness of use as well as uses of queer. It begins with a reflection on the gap between the intended function of an object and how an object is used as a gap with a queer potential. The lecture does not simply affirm that potential, but offers an account of how institutional worlds are built to enable some uses (and users) more than others. To bring out the queerness of use thus requires a world-dismantling effort. The lecture reflects on how dismantling is framed as damage and considers the relationship between the creativity of queer use, violence and survival. Sara Ahmed is an independent scholar and writer. Her work is shaped by a close engagement with feminist and queer of color scholarship and activism. She has recently completed a book, What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use, and has begun working on an empirical research project on complaint. Her publications include: Living a Feminist Life (2017) Willful Subjects (2014) On Being Included (2012) The Promise of Happiness (2010) Queer Phenomenology (2006) The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2014, 2004) Strange Encounters (2000) Differences that Matter (1998). The lecture is free and open to the general public. This event is co-sponsored by: Arcus Endowment of the College of Environmental Design, Arts Research Center, Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Queer Cultural Center, The Program in Critical Theory, Center for Race and Gender, and Gender and Women’s Studies