Deakin Philosophy Seminar – April 4

Dr Helen Palmer (Kingston University, London):
Queer Defamiliarisation in New Materialist Times
 
Abstract:
This paper will introduce some terms from new materialism in order to consider the question: what might relational, entangled, enfleshed defamiliarisation look like? I draw together Shklovsky’s original provocations on defamiliarisation as a methodology for perception and Braidotti’s recent positing of defamiliarisation as a ‘critical distance’ (2013, 88) to propose ways that we might reinvigorate, politicise and queer this term in contemporary thought. I use here the supposed ‘paradox’ of feminist thought, namely that feminism creates the sexual difference it seeks to eliminate, and then present the ways that this paradox is in fact affirmed within new materialist philosophies. I present defamiliarisation reinvigorated here with the added political dimensions of agency, orientation and power; as an embodied and multivalent process which is critical at the same time as it is creative.
 
Bio:
Helen Palmer is a writer, performer and lecturer at Kingston University. She is the author of Deleuze and Futurism: A Manifesto for Nonsense. She has recently published articles on new materialism and gender, and is currently writing a book called Queer Defamiliarisation and a novel called Pleasure Beach. 

 

Where and when:

Tuesday, 4 April, 4.00pm to 5.30pm, Deakin Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Hwy, Room C2.05 

Virtual Meeting Point: ARTSED VMP SHSS. Direct dial number: (+613) 5223 9354 
On joining a VMP, see here.
 
The seminar is free to attend and all are welcome.
 
For any inquiries, please email Daniela Voss: [email protected]
 
Hosted by the European Philosophy and History of Ideas Research Group (EPHI)  and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.