State University of New York at Stony Brook
Department of Philosophy
2014 Lecture Series
You are cordially invited to a
lecture by
Johanna Oksala
University of Helsinki
Lecture:
“Affective Labor and Feminist Politics”
Johanna Oksala is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and
Art Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the New
School for Social Research in New York (2013-2015). She is the author of Foucault and Freedom (Cambridge, 2005),
How to Read Foucault (Granta, 2007), Political Philosophy: All that Matters (Hodder and Stoughton, 2013), and
Essays on Ethics (in Finish, with Sara Heinämaa), and has published numerous articles and book chapters on Foucault,
feminist philosophy, phenomenology, and political philosophy. She recently completed a book on feminist philosophy.
Feminist theorists today are increasingly returning to the insight that ‘capitalist society’ must constitute the appropriate
frame for understanding contemporary forms of women’s subordination and feminist struggles to overcome it. The aim
of my paper is to contribute to such a feminist analysis through a critical appropriation of the notion of affective labor.
My argument proceeds in two stages. I begin by explicating Hardt and Negri’s influential conception of affective labor
and I outline what I see as its benefits for advancing a feminist analysis of contemporary capitalism. In the second part
of the paper I turn to a critical evaluation of the notion in connection with feminist critique. While I acknowledge the
strengths of the notion in characterizing contemporary laboring practices, I nonetheless want to expose its shortcomings
in advancing feminist politics. I contend that in order to imagine effective political responses to the current forms of
gender oppression, we need theoretical distinctions within the category of affective labor that allow us to advance a
political and ethical problematization of our current forms of work.
Tuesday November 18th, 2014
5:00 pm
Harriman Hall 214
Reception to Follow
Harriman Hall, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3750 – Telephone 631-632-7570 Fax 631-632-7522