2008

Sexuality and Economy

research group (Berlin), 2007-2010
The research group focuses on thinking about the entire range of relationships that link sexuality, gender, and economics. How are the histories of capitalism and sexuality interconnected? Are changes in what Foucault calls the deployment of sexuality overlap with the development of capitalism? A historical perspective provides a framework for further questions: How can a queer theoretical critique of heteronormativity contribute to the critique of capitalism? How can we resist the dominance of capitalism and the heteronormative structuring of gender and sexuality? Which alternative models and queer (economic) utopias are thinkable – and liveable? In 2007 a two-day workshop discussed these questions extensively. The workshop built on outcomes from regular meetings that took place prior to the event in order to come up with ideas for an international conference. Major topics included: Rethinking capitalism from a monolithic concept into heterogeneous capitalisms; the role of desire in upholding or transforming capitalist relations; the promise and problems of pleasurable identification with labour relations under neoliberal conditions.

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Queer critique of neoliberal governmentality and economy

research group (Hamburg/Bremen), 2006-2008.
Questioning the heterosexual norm still provokes political and social resistance and rejection. Nevertheless, late modern societies are experiencing a proliferation of genders and sexualities. Representations of sexual and gender diversity pervade everyday culture, medial spaces, and to a certain degree even official politics. What does it mean to analyse this “new openness” as a moment of neoliberal governmentality and economy? Is there an alliance between neoliberal forces and sexual lifestyles or politics? If so, what is the price, who profits, and which kind of new hierarchies develop? The research group investigates the ambiguity of promise and coercion issued by the neoliberal demand for individualization. We strive for an up-to-date understanding of the relation of sexuality and economics. How does the precarisation of working and living conditions involve the sexual and connect it to other moments of social differentiation? Which new kinds of norms and hierarchies organize late modern sexualities?

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GeoCultures & Panic: Perverted

Irit Rogoff and Ana Hoffner
Lecture and Performance, Berlin ICI, November 24, 2008
The event stages an experimental encounter between GeoCultures: Circuits of Art and Globalisation (Irit Rogoff) and Panic: Perverted (Ana Hoffner). The aim is to figure out what happens to the global migration of bodies and images if an artistic approach, Ana’s performance, and an academic lecture engage in mutual inspiration. What is the role of the contributors, their presentations, and what is the role of the audience in this exchange?

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Feminism
– government’s mission? economic factor? insurrection?

panel discussion, Workshop, Radialsystem, Berlin, 8. August 2008
Did feminism turn into a field of official politics, defined by presidential presidential election campaigns, federal administrations, global economic strategizing, and academic career management? Does it make any sense to combine the terms feminism and insurrection today? How does feminist practice deal with the fact that gender relations are no longer understood as structured exclusively by the category of gender, but by various processes of social differentiation like education, post/colonialism, economic globalization, racism, and heteronormativity? The idea of a simple binary of male versus female is widely challenged. How is this insight taken up by feminisms? Is queer feminism a promising answer to these questions?

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