Co-sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies, Sociology of Gender (FemSem), and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.
In recent years, opponents of “political correctness” have surged to prominence from both left and right, shaping a discourse in which perpetrators are “defiantly” imagined as outsiders/others, while victims are often identified as “our women.” This poisonous and regressive situation demands a theorization of contemporary regimes of power as engaged primarily in the violent production of difference. For, the logic of “differentiate and rule” thoroughly permeates the social and our entire “way of life” is premised on endless subtle hierarchical distinctions, which determine whole population attitudes, feelings and actions. In light of this we need to ask how can we learn to value difference when it is too often enlisted in the service of domination? How can we detoxify feminism and learn to live with alterity?
Sabine Hark is a German feminist and sociologist. She is Professor of Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Research at the Technical University of Berlin. She will discuss her recently co-authored book Unterscheiden und Herrschen, now available in English translation entitled The Future of Difference. The book explores the implications for feminism and the “new racisms” after the “Kölner Silvesternacht 2015.” tu-berlin.de/zifg Twitter: sabine_hark.
The Sociology of Gender Brownbag (or FemSem) meets every Thursday from 12:30 to 2pm virtually on Canvas (unless otherwise noted). If you’d like to request a presentation date, please email Kelsey Wright at kwright22@wisc.edu.