Dissident Daughters ?
The Psychic Life of Academic Feminism
Professor Valerie Hey
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer
2. Sub-optimal Feminism
Inside the Knowledge Factory
The Death of Critique - Bronwyn Davies
Killing Thinking – Mary Evans
Neo-liberal Cruelties – Rosalind Gill
Micro-politics & Disqualified Discourses –
Louise Morley
Carelessness – Kathleen Lynch
3. Foucault’s Hyper & pessimisticactivism
'My point is not that everything is bad, but that
everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the
same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we
always have something to do. So my position
leads not to apathy but to hyper - and
pessimistic – activism. I think that the ethicopolitical choice we have to make every day is to
determine which is the main danger.
(Foucault,1983)
4. Serious Play
As Judith Butler (1990:x) notes,
‘laughter in the face of serious
categories is indispensable for
feminism … without a doubt,
feminism continues to require
its own forms of serious play’.
28 June, 2016
5. Tantalising Feminism
As a bitterly funny commentary on the elitism of higher education, and
the collusive ways in which we as academics are complicit in the
competitive practices of research selectivity and as a defiant enactment
of the politics of refusal – it was simply glorious! As individuals these are
women academics who have made major contributions to the theoretical
literature… but in breaking out of its theoretical conventions they used
(and parodied) theory in ways that
gave hope, certainly to me, and
judging by the riotous applause, to most of the audience. This was
certainly not the usual reaction of a group of academics at a BERA [British
Educational Research Association] symposium. Why it was so important, I
would argue, is that it connected theory and practice, and showed that
we can act, and can defy the seemingly endless ways in which the
practices of higher education seek to compartmentalise us and our
students.
Sue Clegg (2005:126) commenting on FAAB’s performance at BERA, 2003
What does it mean to be political?
• Words productivity – alienated labour
• Go-slow – Be Still & Know ?
• Skrim-shanking – The Good Soldier Švejk