Course directors:

Silvana Carotenuto, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, Naples
Renata Jambrešić Kirin, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb
Lada Čale Feldman, University of Zagreb
Francesca Maria Gabrielli, University of Zagreb
Elissa Helms, Central European University, Vienna
Jasmina Lukić, Central European University, Vienna
Sandra Prlenda, Centre for Women’s Studies, Zagreb

Course description:

After fifteen courses and fifteen different perspectives andapproaches to contemporary transnational feminism(s), westrive to maintain our active role in discussing and re/configuring this valuable concept in a digital environmentwith a foothold in the history of remarkable women’s struggles and efforts. While the plurality of the ways in which feminismcan be practiced and theorized these days is expanding, there are basic disagreements about whether “hashtag feminisms”further split, fragment and antagonize women’s communities, or whether a new revolutionary fuel for social change is being created around feminist protests and movements in different parts of the world. We invite participants to contribute to this discussion with their grassroots experiences, research,performative gestures and theoretical insights.

While contemporary philosophers have long designated the political, social and cultural forces that are rapidly changing and reshaping our world in motion, feminists like Simone de Beauvoir and Rosi Braidotti were the first to point out that all human and non-human entities are subjects in a process of becoming, in constant metamorphoses and movement. Forrecent feminist thinkers who oppose the hegemony of Westernity and Eurocentricity, the reference point of analysis becomes the world in all its unfolding, infinite, interdependent, migratory, transnational, and transsexual flows of becoming. Feminist philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva believes that the possibility of transformation “makes us universally human in its spiritual-ethical sense”. Adopting the physicists’ idea of ‘deep implicancy’, described as the entangled relationship of all human and non-human entities evolving into the planet we know, da Silva encourages us to rethink our socio-political, spiritual and personal livesaccording to the idea of interdependence, indeterminacy and fluidity, a constant folding and unfolding between different ways of reading and co-creating reality. Inviting us to reconsider blackness, precarity, catastrophe, and vulnerability as the grounds that make possible entirely different ethics and ways of living, she creates a fresh critical avenue for feminist reflection.

There are also many more feminist postures and responses to counter global recession and disruption, pandemic, militarism,migrations, exile and displacement, unjust globalisation, neo-colonialism, unsustainable cities and communities, and gender inequality. Feminists know very well that taking care of theEarth means taking care of every creature inhabiting it; they are again the first to conceptualise the cosmopolitan care model of global responsibility. Normative goals and standard values of “the good life” are reconfigured through feminist ethics and care with the goal of ensuring that all are cared for well. Global responsibility means the duty to care for vulnerable, subjugated, dependent, and needy persons, in a way that acknowledges their dignity. Other feminist thinkers have been involved in creating the concepts of universal basic income, global citizenship, solidarity economy, gift economyand many other proposals to deal with social and moral deadlocks in the contemporary world. Despite the inevitable differences and diversities, all feminist activists agree that thinking that another world is possible is first of all an imaginative task that demands an affirmative activist disposition in which humanistic and artistic aspirations are at the forefront.

The discussion that we want to (re)open this year under the umbrella of the title “Re/configuration. Worlds in motion”concerns research questions such as:

-how are the threats and facets of the modern world re/configured in feminist philosophy, literature, theatre, visual art or humanities?
– what discourses and images of transforming (inner and outer) worlds are present in contemporary feminist aesthetics, pedagogy, and activism?
-does the digital sphere offer tools for expressive revolutions and transformative endeavours or vice versa?
– can storytelling be feminist-friendly in building virtual worlds?
– is self-care an act of political warfare or a neoliberal trap?
– what kind of feminist interventions are invented or performed within militarised, antagonised, pauperised and contaminated (non)human landscapes?
– how might a feminist lens enable us to see anew and reconfigure transnationality, internationalism or sisterhood?
– is the surge of ‘cosmopo/ethics’ constructive for new feminist radicalisms?
– how do female mobility, migration, precarious ‘class’ and global diaspora intervene in reconfiguring existence on the planet?
– how is history being reconfigured by means of the new experiments in ‘fictional fabulation’ offered by black feminist radical theory?
– how does the question of a new feminist ‘aesthetic’ inform contemporary critiques of the Anthropocene?

Eligibility:

IUC courses are conducted at the postgraduate level. All interested postgraduate students (in MA or PhD programs) may apply to participate, although the course targets young scholars and postgraduate students with a defined interest in women’s/gender studies, transnational studies, philosophy, sociology, literary and cultural studies, postcolonialism, anthropology, or related discipline. The course will be limited to 15 students (25 participants in total) in order to provide sufficient space for discussion, seminar work and student presentations.

The course directors will keep open the possibility of online participation in case the epidemiological situation does not allow travel and gatherings in person. However, the organizers do hope that all participants will be able to gather in person in Dubrovnik. Participants must seek funding from their own institutions for the costs of travel, lodging and meals. Limited financial support is available for participants from parts of Eastern Europe and some non-European countries (please see http://www.iuc.hr/iuc-support.php). The IUC requires a payment of 50 EUR for the Course Fee. The working language of the course is English.

Application Procedure:

Please submit a proposal consisting of your CV and a short narrative describing your interest in the topic or a 250-words abstract if you would like to make a presention at the course. Place all current contact information at the top of your CV. Send submissions by e-mail to Mirela Dakić (mireladakic1@gmail.com). Use the subject: IUC Dubrovnik 2023. The proposal deadline is 25 March, 2023.

Izvor preuzetog vizuala: https://cartoonmovement.com/cartoon/mahsa-amini-13