Queer readings of accountability and vulnerability

A PhD reading group at the Centre for Women’s Studies

This is an informal reading group, led by visiting researcher Sara Edenheim (Umeå University, Sweden) and centering around ethics of accountability and vulnerability. Having read texts by Sara Ahmed (Home and Away; Orientations), Judith Butler (Giving an Account of Oneself), and Wendy Brown (Wounded Attachment), we now turn to Lauren Berlant and her article 'Nearly Utopian, Nearly Normal: Post-Fordist Affect in La Promesse and Rosetta' (Public Culture 19:2, 2007). The main topic of the essay is "about the political and affective economies of normativity at the present time, the production as desire of a collective will to imagine oneself as a solitary agent who can and must live the good life promised by capitalist culture.” (Berlant, 278)

All interested are welcome to join us – prepare by reading Berlant’s article (previous texts of course optional). If you have trouble finding the article, e-mail sara.edenheim@york.ac.uk .

Afterwards we’re off to grab something to eat and drink – feel free to come along!