the locus of the body
what are gender studies?
The category of gender and the cultural implications of being sexued became one of the central interdisciplinary fields in the humanities in the 1970s and 1980s, although it rose to prominence in Western universities after 1990. The first impulse came from the early waves of feminism, proposing not only to study but also to combat what could be seen at the time as the silence and absence of women in culture. Overall, militancy and intellectual appreciation were always closely knit in this field.
The field broadened and diversified as the analytic endeavor progressed. Along with studies dedicated specifically to women, also men's studies appeared. On the other hand, the idea that women and nature are jointly oppressed, the ecofeminist postulates were voiced in the 1970s and 1980s. The concept of gender broadened the vision of human sexual identity, leading to the proliferation of queer identifications. Nonheteronormative points of view gained attention. What is more, the category of gender is often analyzed at the intersection of other categories connected with the body (such as race or disability) and the social inscription of the human individual (class, nationality, location).
On the other hand, as the body and its physiology occupies such a central place, the field explores a reality that humans share with other living beings, opening new perspectives in human-animal and even human-plant studies (for instance, when the physiology of breathing is explored), giving new points of view on ecocentric interconnectedness. Taking the body for starting point of the analysis, the approaches oscillate between essentialist and performative, constantly reformulating the question of what the body is into what the body does.
The field broadened and diversified as the analytic endeavor progressed. Along with studies dedicated specifically to women, also men's studies appeared. On the other hand, the idea that women and nature are jointly oppressed, the ecofeminist postulates were voiced in the 1970s and 1980s. The concept of gender broadened the vision of human sexual identity, leading to the proliferation of queer identifications. Nonheteronormative points of view gained attention. What is more, the category of gender is often analyzed at the intersection of other categories connected with the body (such as race or disability) and the social inscription of the human individual (class, nationality, location).
On the other hand, as the body and its physiology occupies such a central place, the field explores a reality that humans share with other living beings, opening new perspectives in human-animal and even human-plant studies (for instance, when the physiology of breathing is explored), giving new points of view on ecocentric interconnectedness. Taking the body for starting point of the analysis, the approaches oscillate between essentialist and performative, constantly reformulating the question of what the body is into what the body does.
how do I contribute to this field?
The problems of sexual embodiment and gender are present in a large part of my literary criticism. My approaches often deal with non-European and non-Western gender constructs, such as matchundadi (male condition) in my research on Guinea-Bissau or the queer identity in Sri Lanka, evoked in my paper on Karunatilaka. On the other hand, I feel also tempted by the sophisticated academic discourses on gender issues in the Western cultural sphere. Overall, I work more often on masculinity, male identities, and their culturally defined, yet problematic fields of action, such as hunting, war, or the conquest and control of women.
ongoing research
Intimacy technology and the modern quest for artificial love: revisiting Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s Ève future
The article’s aim is to revisit Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s short novel Eve future, published in 1886, to reflect on the development of the present-day intimacy technology. The French text not only anticipates much of this development; it also helps to understand its rationale. The analysis traces a retrospective of the reinvention of intimacy that supplemented the modern deconstruction of the androcentric order of control exerted by a pater over the household including things and humans alieni iuris, assimilated to things. The network of relationships is radically simplified as the world of an ancient pater is reduced to a solipsistic sphere of modern intimacy. At the last step of the technological evolution, the machine is disembodied, dematerialised, and transformed into a virtual chatbot. Just like in the novel, the reminder of the technologically transformed woman is a manipulated voice, controlled and deprived of any possible discomfort: protest, negation, unpredictability.
my essays in feminisms, gender & queer studies
Queer austringers.
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