7 Sept – Masculinity, Disability & Sexual Publics – Anna Hickey-Moody

The “First Fridays” Gender and Sexuality Studies public seminar continues on 7 September at Deakin Downtown (727 Collins St, near Southern Cross Station). These seminars are free and open to people interested in the work, although bookings are required (click here to book your spot).

The September public seminar, presented by Anna Hickey-Moody, begins at 4pm and will be followed by drinks at around 5pm. Afternoon tea will be served before the seminar, from 3pm, as part of a GSS/LGBTQ+ community networking event, sponsored by Deakin University Equity and Diversity.

Masculinity, Disability and Sexual Publics

The field of disability studies has engaged with Deleuze and Guattari’s work in a fashion almost unprecedented by other empirically oriented disciplines, perhaps with the exception of education. In this chapter, I survey work on the sociology of disability, and disability studies more broadly, in which Deleuze, and Deleuze and Guattari’s, work has provided scholars with useful resources to think through social and cultural dynamics articulating across disability. The ways disability and masculinity are formulated in relation to each other remains a contentious issue, because the social construction of disability often regulates the kinds of publics called to engage with texts featuring men with disabilities and the kinds of fora in which men with disabilities are welcomed. While I do not go so far as to suggest exactly what a Deleuzoguattarian informed version of disability studies might look like, I show some ways that Deleuze’s thought helps us to better understand the gendered politics of the lives of men with a disability and the social production of the gendered nature of disability as it articulates in relation to sexuality.

Before undertaking our own textual analysis of popular cultural texts about masculinity and disability, I examine the gendered nature of hierarchies of disability, paying particular attention to the ways disability can lead to reconfigurations of sexuality. I make some suggestions about how Deleuze and Guattari’s thought facilitates new perspectives on disability, masculinity and sexuality. In so doing, I focus in on a case study of the photographer Michael Stokes’ work on war veterans. I couple this with a consideration of the 2017 Hollywood film Me Before You, which offers a popular representation of the life, death and struggles of a man with a disability, and I finish this case studies with a discussion of the UK ‘reality TV’ show The Undatebles. All three of these texts work from the presumption that being sexually attractive and/or romantically involved has primary significance in affirming social value for men and plays a foundational role in building men’s self-esteem. 

About the Speaker

Anna Hickey-Moody is a Professor of Media and Communications at RMIT, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow 2017-2021. She also holds a Vice-Chancellor Senior Research Fellowship. Anna Hickey-Moody has worked with arts practice as a research method since the late 1990’s. She is known for her methodological expertise with affect theory, qualitative and practice research. Anna has developed a philosophically informed, cultural studies approach to youth arts as a subcultural form of humanities education. Her books include The Politics of Widening Participation and University Access for Young People (Routledge, 2016), Youth, Arts and Education (Routledge, 2013), Unimaginable Bodies (Sense, 2009) and Masculinity Beyond the Metropolis (Palgrave, 2006). Anna has also edited a number of collected works and themed journal editions.

For further information and to register, click here.

Upcoming GSSN Seminars

5 October — Gilbert Caluya
2 November — Eben Kirksey
7 December — Aileen Moreton-Robinson

For registration details, recordings of past seminars, and links to other events, see the Gender and Sexuality Studies Research Network blog.