21-22 June Neo-Liberalism and its Post feminist Perversions; Young Women: ‘Illegible Rage’ or Complexification of Affirmation?

THE WORD GIRL IN A GLOBAL FRAME.

This series of seminars ‘The Word Girl in a Global Frame’ will be part of the International Feminism and Theory Group at Goldsmiths College (Sociology and Media and Communications).

The Word Girl will comprise a website and various research activities to be hosted at Goldsmiths as a forum for staff, post-graduate students and also non- Goldsmiths academics and researchers working on relevant topics. We will be seeking contributions from ongoing research on the boundary setting practices of girlhood in a global frame. What are the limits of intelligibility in regard to the inhabiting of the category of girlhood? How might the case for the radical uninhabitability of normative girlhood or womanhood be defined within an international human rights discourse? We are particularly interested in work which pushes forward with new psychoanalytical perspectives in regard to body morphology, anger, anxiety, self harming behaviour, suicide and ‘illegible rage’. We are also interested in affect and emotion, and in transcultural work on youthful female embodiment. We look forward to receiving articles which examine a wide range of cultural phenomena which engages with these issues in a global frame. These might include films, music, art work, fiction, and autobiographical writing. We hope to receive work which documents activities which undermine or disrupt the various forms of power which operate as norms of social and sexual approval in regard to contemporary young womanhood. We hope to receive a good deal of work from outside the Anglo-American field. We also aim to bring discussions of young womanhood into current debates on neo-liberalism and globalisation, war and violence, race and post-colonialism, ethics and vulnerability.

Inaugurating Event. THE WORD GIRL IN A GLOBAL FRAME.

This evening and next day event to be held on 21st and 22nd June 2006 at Goldsmiths College, Ben Pimlott Building, will be an opportunity for senior scholars alongside PhD students to present innovative work. Numbers attending the event will be restricted to 50. Lunch and refreshments will be provided and there will be a dinner in the evening. The proceedings will be published in either book form or as a special issue of a relevant journal.

4-6pm 21st June.
PANEL ONE.
Neo-Liberalism and its Post feminist Perversions
Kim Allen (Goldsmiths), Lisa Blackman (Goldsmiths) Ros Gill (LSE) Valerie Walkerdine (Cardiff) Chair Celia Lury
6pm Invitation out and pending to Tracey Emin to discuss her work
followed by drinks .
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10-12 22nd June
PANEL TWO
Young Women: ‘Illegible Rage’ or Complexification of Affirmation?
Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht) Shelley Budgeon (B’ham) Angela McRobbie (Goldsmiths) Susie Orbach (LSE and psycho-analyst) Ann Phoenix (Open University). Chair Claire Colebrooke

12-1 Lunch
1 - 2 30 PANEL THREE
Queer and Transgender Girlhoods
Gayle Salamon (Princeton), Emma Renolds (Cardiff) Judith Halberstam (USC). Chair Vikki Bell
coffee/tea
2 45- 4 15 PANEL FOUR
Ethnographies of Young Women’s Affect: Love, Hate, Violence and Vulnerability.
Beckie Coleman (Lancaster) Julia Dane (Goldsmiths) Niza Yanay (Ben Gurion). …chair Angela McRobbie
4 30- 6 30 PANEL FIVE
Sex/Race/Body/Generation..
Linda Duits (Amsterdam) Lisa Lowe (if available) Angela Phillips (Goldsmiths) Denise Noble (Goldsmiths) Jessica Ringrose (Cardiff) Chair Joanna Zylinska

DRINKS RECEPTION …..DINNER AT BERMONDSEY KITCHEN.
Free to Goldsmiths staff/students. Others £30 /£15 academics /post-graduates. Cheques to Goldsmiths College, send to Zehra Arabadji Dept of Media and Communications Goldsmiths College, New Cross, London SE 14 6 NW.

(event organised with support from the Centre for Cultural Studies)
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