Katerina Kolarova
Charles University, Prague, Department of Gender Studies, Faculty Member
- Critical Disability Studies, Critical Theory, Critical Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, Poststructuralism, Raewyn Connell, and 15 moreQueer Theory, Sexuality, Media, Popular Culture, Film, Literature, Poststructuralist Theory, Feminist Theory, Gender Studies, Gender, Discourse Analysis, Higher Education, Gender and Sexuality, Somatechnics, and Globalizationedit
Research Interests:
Geschlechtliche und sexuelle Differenz/en werden gegenwartig haufig nicht mehr als Problem verstanden, sondern zunehmend als kulturelles Kapital zelebriert. Diese Form der Wertschatzung von Diversitat in der Spatmoderne, so Antke Engel,... more
Geschlechtliche und sexuelle Differenz/en werden gegenwartig haufig nicht mehr als Problem verstanden, sondern zunehmend als kulturelles Kapital zelebriert. Diese Form der Wertschatzung von Diversitat in der Spatmoderne, so Antke Engel, ist eng mit neoliberalen Entwurfen von Subjektivitat verwoben. Sie bietet „projektive Integration“ – ein Begriff, der die affektive Besetzung von Bildern beschreibt – als Analysewerkzeug an und fragt anhand differenzierter Bildlekturen nach queeren und neoliberalen Topoi und Diskursen, die in diesen Bildern miteinander verwoben werden. Sie macht so Widerspruche sichtbar, die sowohl der neoliberalen Marktlogik als auch dem queeren Projekt inharent sind, und fuhrt vor, wie sich unter diesen Bedingungen der Unentscheidbarkeit queere Politik denken liese. Mit diesem Band formuliert Engel einen wichtigen Beitrag zur kritischen Reflexion von sowohl Neoliberalismus als auch queerer Politik.
Research Interests:
In this polemical reading of Grodecki's documentaries (Not Angels but Angels, Body without Soul that trace the development of sex work and the pornography industry in Prague, and Eastern Europe at large, in the mid-1990s, I contend that... more
In this polemical reading of Grodecki's documentaries (Not Angels but Angels, Body without Soul that trace the development of sex work and the pornography industry in Prague, and Eastern Europe at large, in the mid-1990s, I contend that the focus on sexuality—and the moral scandal of sex work—puts pressure on visions of postsocialist rehabilitation and cure of the “East.”
I show how the author’s and the audience’s fascination with sex and cross-border sexual and viral transactions facilitated the divide between sexuality on the one hand and issues of work and labor on the other at a transitional moment in Czech history when other forms of labor across regional borders were, paradoxically, spotlighted. The films center on morality rather than labor and thus, I argue, inhibit materialist critiques of postsocialist developments in Eastern Europe. Bringing a crip critique to bear on these films, I argue that Grodecki’s films call forth and make possible, as well as frustrate, alternative imaginaries of labor and disability.
I show how the author’s and the audience’s fascination with sex and cross-border sexual and viral transactions facilitated the divide between sexuality on the one hand and issues of work and labor on the other at a transitional moment in Czech history when other forms of labor across regional borders were, paradoxically, spotlighted. The films center on morality rather than labor and thus, I argue, inhibit materialist critiques of postsocialist developments in Eastern Europe. Bringing a crip critique to bear on these films, I argue that Grodecki’s films call forth and make possible, as well as frustrate, alternative imaginaries of labor and disability.
Research Interests:
Editorial k monotematickemu cislu: Sociologie a sociální teorie ne/způsobilosti
Research Interests:
This text traces the recent critical debates within intersectional theory. It foregrounds the critiques that point out the power dynamics underwriting the success of intersectional theory and it focuses on the critiques of the racialised... more
This text traces the recent critical debates within intersectional theory. It foregrounds
the critiques that point out the power dynamics underwriting the success of intersectional
theory and it focuses on the critiques of the racialised dynamics in the current development
of intersectional work and in the shift from the intersectional politics of ‘redress’ towards
the agenda of inclusivity and diversity. The review of these lines of critique seeks to serve as
a critical platform against which to contextualise the recently growing interest in intersectionality
in the Czech Republic.
the critiques that point out the power dynamics underwriting the success of intersectional
theory and it focuses on the critiques of the racialised dynamics in the current development
of intersectional work and in the shift from the intersectional politics of ‘redress’ towards
the agenda of inclusivity and diversity. The review of these lines of critique seeks to serve as
a critical platform against which to contextualise the recently growing interest in intersectionality
in the Czech Republic.
Research Interests:
Dieser Artikel bietet eine crip-epistemologische Lesart der postsozialistischen „Rehabilitation“ der Tschechoslowakei der frühen 1990er Jahre. Er diskutiert, wie die Semantiken von Behinderung, die ideologischen Strukturen des Imperativs... more
Dieser Artikel bietet eine crip-epistemologische Lesart der postsozialistischen „Rehabilitation“ der Tschechoslowakei der frühen 1990er Jahre. Er diskutiert, wie die Semantiken von Behinderung, die ideologischen Strukturen des Imperativs von Gesundheit und körperlicher Unversehrtheit (compulsory able-bodiedness) sowie Ableismus dazu dienten, den Optimismus der ersten post-revolutionären Jahre zu fördern. Darüber hinaus deckt der Artikel die Mechanismen auf, durch welche die Möglichkeiten der crip Epistemologien (cripistemologies) und eines politisierten crip Horizontes verschlossen wurden. Das Beispiel der Tschechoslowakei der frühen 1990er Jahre bietet sich für eine tiefergehende Untersuchung der Toxizität des Festhaltens am Optimismus an – eine Untersuchung der affektiven Politik der Positivität im Allgemeinen und innerhalb der Disability Theorien im Speziellen. Der Artikel plädiert für eine intensivere Auseinandersetzung mit Behinderung und cripness innerhalb der Theorien zum Neoliberalismus. Er formuliert eine crip Kritik der affektiven Politiken des Neoliberalismus, die Lauren Berlant als „grausamen Optimismus“ bezeichnet.
Research Interests:
Recognising that the fantasy of development retains its political and economic salience and continues to inform imaginings of the future, a ‘good life’, and humanity, the special issue, Cripping Development, charts the manifold ways in... more
Recognising that the fantasy of development retains its political and economic salience and continues to inform imaginings of the future, a ‘good life’, and humanity, the special issue, Cripping Development, charts the manifold ways in which development utilises and leans against disability, race, gender, caste, social status, hierarchical notions of ‘difference’ and structures of precarity.
In Cripping Development, the contributors map strategies of resistance and ‘crip appropriations’ of development and also explore the possibilities of creative reimaginings and critical reorientations of development to ask: What would it mean to embrace the notions of chronicity, stagnation, and debility as a focus for reorienting the idea of development? How would doing this reorient how we relate to the present and to what we imagine to be the ‘solution’ to the impasse of development? What forms of sustenance of life would it allow for?
In Cripping Development, the contributors map strategies of resistance and ‘crip appropriations’ of development and also explore the possibilities of creative reimaginings and critical reorientations of development to ask: What would it mean to embrace the notions of chronicity, stagnation, and debility as a focus for reorienting the idea of development? How would doing this reorient how we relate to the present and to what we imagine to be the ‘solution’ to the impasse of development? What forms of sustenance of life would it allow for?
Research Interests:
This roundtable seeks to discuss the ways in which the notion of development is informed by normative d/evaluations of disabled and racialised lives. The participants come together as scholars who are engaging with disability in and from... more
This roundtable seeks to discuss the ways in which the notion of development is informed by normative d/evaluations of disabled and racialised lives. The participants come together as scholars who are engaging with disability in and from very different geo-political locations and positionalities. We discuss the ways in which ideologies of development seep into epistemologies of disability, transnational disability policies, formations of politicised communities of disabled people and their political alliances with other marginalised groups.
Research Interests:
This text proposes a cripistemology of post-socialist rehabilitation into/through neoliberalism in Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s. It discusses the ways in which disability semantics as well as ideological structures of compulsory... more
This text proposes a cripistemology of post-socialist rehabilitation into/through neoliberalism in Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s. It discusses the ways in which disability semantics as well as ideological structures of compulsory health and able-bodiedness served to fuel the optimism of the first post-revolutionary years, and reveals the ways in which the possibility of crip epistemologies and politicised crip horizons were foreclosed. The example of Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s facilitates a more capacious inquiry into the toxicity of attachments to optimism—an affective politics of positivity more generally, and for disability theory specifically. The text also speaks to the absence of disability from theories of neoliberalism and formulates a crip critique of the affective politics of neoliberalism for which Lauren Berlant coined the term “cruel optimism.”
Research Interests:
This paper examines the relations and the tensions between debility and disability in global contexts defined by complex forms of bio-social precarity. My focus is Baan Kamlangchay, in Thailand, a care home providing care for older people... more
This paper examines the relations and the tensions between debility and disability in global contexts defined
by complex forms of bio-social precarity. My focus is Baan Kamlangchay, in Thailand, a care home providing
care for older people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease from the global North. I treat Baan Kamlangchay
as one concrete example of emerging circuits of transnational care/reproductive labour in order to
investigate the interrelations between disability and wider global bio-political inequalities. Using the
concept of ‘biolegitimacy’, I discuss the power dynamics in the relationships between the racialised and
gendered care workers in the centre and (white) disabled residents. I argue that debility, understood as the
flexible gradation of dis/ability and in/capacity, allows us to better understand these novel forms of
embodied precarity and their political implications in global contexts.
by complex forms of bio-social precarity. My focus is Baan Kamlangchay, in Thailand, a care home providing
care for older people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease from the global North. I treat Baan Kamlangchay
as one concrete example of emerging circuits of transnational care/reproductive labour in order to
investigate the interrelations between disability and wider global bio-political inequalities. Using the
concept of ‘biolegitimacy’, I discuss the power dynamics in the relationships between the racialised and
gendered care workers in the centre and (white) disabled residents. I argue that debility, understood as the
flexible gradation of dis/ability and in/capacity, allows us to better understand these novel forms of
embodied precarity and their political implications in global contexts.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
THE AIDS OUTBREAK IN THE TIME OF NORMALIZED BOREDOM The bleak time of ‘normalization’, the image of suffocating ennui so well described in Václav Havel’s phrase, ‘the bleak sky [of] boredom and mortifying eventlessness’ (cited in... more
THE AIDS OUTBREAK IN THE TIME OF NORMALIZED BOREDOM
The bleak time of ‘normalization’, the image of suffocating ennui so well described in Václav Havel’s phrase, ‘the bleak sky [of] boredom and mortifying eventlessness’ (cited in Oates-Indruchová 2002: 54), has become one of the quintessential associations of the period of late socialism. However, portraying this long period as one overdrawn moment of tedious stasis makes invisible the intense ideological labour spent on producing and maintaining the aura of quiet, content and conflict-free ‘normalized’ times. Socialism, as Alexei Yurchak argues, appeared to ‘be forever’ until it was suddenly ‘no more’ (Yurchak 2006). Even if in retrospect – a retrospect often informed by a powerful abjection of the ‘shameful’ communist past – the fall of the regime might appear inevitable and only a question of time, Yurchak documents how on the contrary it came as a surprise, a ‘stunning shock’ experienced as a ‘break of consciousness’ (ibid.: 2). Similarly Michal Pullmann’s most recent study of perestroika (přestavba) radically questions the notion of the foreseeable end of socialism and reinterprets perestroika as an experiment in the transformation of state socialism, an experiment invested in an attempt to renegotiate and re-establish the waning ideological consensus that the socialist state is – despite its drawbacks – the best state order imaginable (Pullmann 2011). Breaking down the presumption of ‘the “totality” of the communist experience’ (Bren 2010: 3), recent scholarship has instead drawn attention to moments of friction, fissures and ways of differentiating investment in the (dis-)continuities of the socialist present. My reading of Kopytem sem, kopytem tam (A Tainted Horseplay; dir. Věra Chytilová 1988), a film rendition of the ‘bleak times of normalization’ and the first and only Czech(oslovak) full-length feature film dealing with HIV and AIDS, builds on these differing investments. Reading A Tainted Horseplay I attempt to make visible the ideological labour invested in re-creating and re-construing the socialist consensus and in negotiating the ambivalences and contradictions that shaped socialist reality....
The bleak time of ‘normalization’, the image of suffocating ennui so well described in Václav Havel’s phrase, ‘the bleak sky [of] boredom and mortifying eventlessness’ (cited in Oates-Indruchová 2002: 54), has become one of the quintessential associations of the period of late socialism. However, portraying this long period as one overdrawn moment of tedious stasis makes invisible the intense ideological labour spent on producing and maintaining the aura of quiet, content and conflict-free ‘normalized’ times. Socialism, as Alexei Yurchak argues, appeared to ‘be forever’ until it was suddenly ‘no more’ (Yurchak 2006). Even if in retrospect – a retrospect often informed by a powerful abjection of the ‘shameful’ communist past – the fall of the regime might appear inevitable and only a question of time, Yurchak documents how on the contrary it came as a surprise, a ‘stunning shock’ experienced as a ‘break of consciousness’ (ibid.: 2). Similarly Michal Pullmann’s most recent study of perestroika (přestavba) radically questions the notion of the foreseeable end of socialism and reinterprets perestroika as an experiment in the transformation of state socialism, an experiment invested in an attempt to renegotiate and re-establish the waning ideological consensus that the socialist state is – despite its drawbacks – the best state order imaginable (Pullmann 2011). Breaking down the presumption of ‘the “totality” of the communist experience’ (Bren 2010: 3), recent scholarship has instead drawn attention to moments of friction, fissures and ways of differentiating investment in the (dis-)continuities of the socialist present. My reading of Kopytem sem, kopytem tam (A Tainted Horseplay; dir. Věra Chytilová 1988), a film rendition of the ‘bleak times of normalization’ and the first and only Czech(oslovak) full-length feature film dealing with HIV and AIDS, builds on these differing investments. Reading A Tainted Horseplay I attempt to make visible the ideological labour invested in re-creating and re-construing the socialist consensus and in negotiating the ambivalences and contradictions that shaped socialist reality....
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Disability in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union is indeed a timely book. It arrives at the 25-year anniversary of the collapse of most of the socialist governments in Eastern and Central Europe; an anniversary that is still... more
Disability in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union is indeed a timely book. It arrives at the 25-year anniversary of the collapse of most of the socialist governments
in Eastern and Central Europe; an anniversary that is still largely seen as a
celebration of the arrival of democracy and freedom to the ‘Eastern bloc’. This simplifying appraisal of the complex and difficult social transformations of the post-socialist societies following 1989 or 1991 respectively illustrates how needed
the intervention this volume offers really is. Resounding with the current critiques of austerity measures and politics of exceptionalising (and undoing) disabled lives, editors Michael Rassell and Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova sum up the ambivalent effects of the post-socialist transformations as follows: ‘In a cruel irony of fate, disabled people in Eastern Europe gained greater recognition and freedom over their lives at a time when political and economic instability undermined the potential of state welfare systems to reduce disabling barriers’ (6). Hence, one of the important contributions
of the book lies in providing us with concrete examples of the contradictory nature of the impacts the post-socialist developments (and the role of international organisations and transnational institutional bodies) had on the lives of people with disabilities...
in Eastern and Central Europe; an anniversary that is still largely seen as a
celebration of the arrival of democracy and freedom to the ‘Eastern bloc’. This simplifying appraisal of the complex and difficult social transformations of the post-socialist societies following 1989 or 1991 respectively illustrates how needed
the intervention this volume offers really is. Resounding with the current critiques of austerity measures and politics of exceptionalising (and undoing) disabled lives, editors Michael Rassell and Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova sum up the ambivalent effects of the post-socialist transformations as follows: ‘In a cruel irony of fate, disabled people in Eastern Europe gained greater recognition and freedom over their lives at a time when political and economic instability undermined the potential of state welfare systems to reduce disabling barriers’ (6). Hence, one of the important contributions
of the book lies in providing us with concrete examples of the contradictory nature of the impacts the post-socialist developments (and the role of international organisations and transnational institutional bodies) had on the lives of people with disabilities...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Východiskem eseje Kateřiny Kolářové je reinterpretace kulturních artefaktů 90. let s cílem sledovat, jak jsme se ocitli v neoliberální politické situaci dneška. Dokumentární fotografie Jana Šibíka, projevy Václava Klause a Petra Pitharta... more
Východiskem eseje Kateřiny Kolářové je reinterpretace kulturních artefaktů 90. let s cílem sledovat, jak jsme se ocitli v neoliberální politické situaci dneška. Dokumentární fotografie Jana Šibíka, projevy Václava Klause a Petra Pitharta či zpovědi v bulvárních novinách poukazují na krutý optimismus postsocialistické transformace: na toxickou víru v pokrok a politiku pozitivity, jež nejen vylučují a zneviditelňují zkušenost " jiných " či nezpůsobilých těl nemocných, queer a trans lidí, ale vytváří také vlastní specifickou (bio)politiku. Autorka se ptá, jaké faktory přispívají k tomu, že jsou pro nás některé politické vize myslitelné, zatímco jiné zůstávají naprosto nepředstavitelnými.
Research Interests:
Interrogating the austerity measures introduced by the Czech government under the Prime ministry of Petr Nečas (2010–2013), this essay wishes to highlight the import of the translations of the political into the registry of morality,... more
Interrogating the austerity measures introduced by the Czech government under the Prime ministry of Petr Nečas (2010–2013), this essay wishes to highlight the import of the translations of the political into the registry of morality, which Chantal Mouffe identifies as features of postpolitics, for (re)establishing of social hierarchies and inequalities based in difference. In particular, I establish the strategic importance of „disability“ and racialised concept of „maladaptation“ – for such postpolitical reformulations of the political and the normative outlines of the abled citizenship. After mapping out the ideological deployment of the idea of crisis for ethics of austerity, the essay concludes by posing questions about possible limits and drawbacks of relying upon crisis as a trope of intersectional feminist critique.
Research Interests:
This text explores the affective politics of race and disability that underpin the post-socialist developments in the Czech Republic. Firstly, I interrogate " mental retardation " , as a discursive and material practice of differentiating... more
This text explores the affective politics of race and disability that underpin the post-socialist developments in the Czech Republic. Firstly, I interrogate " mental retardation " , as a discursive and material practice of differentiating human life according to presumed value. To make the argument, the text follows practices of " mental retardation " through several discursive and material locations: cultural imaginations of " ferality " , controversy spiked by the use of " protective " / " cage " beds in institutional care and the concept of lege artis, i.e. the principle of necessary and (medically) possible care. Travelling through these locations, I argue, secondly, that racialised and ableist notions of worthy human life have been central to the post-socialist affective politics of abandonment. In other words, the text shows how the politics of renegotiated belonging and attachment to liberal democracy in the post-socialist Czech Republic were predicated upon structures of abandonment and the de/valuation of disabled and racialised lives. And lastly, the text lays out the legacies of colonial domination even in the contemporary intersectional comminglings of race and disability as it is echoed in the current practices of " mental retardation " .
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Úvod V minulém roce galerie Centrum současného umění DoX uspořádala ve spolupráci s Jedličkovým ústavem a školami multimediální výstavu s názvem Postiženi normalitou (Disabled by Normality). 1 Jak ostatně napovídá i název, koncepce... more
Úvod V minulém roce galerie Centrum současného umění DoX uspořádala ve spolupráci s Jedličkovým ústavem a školami multimediální výstavu s názvem Postiženi normalitou (Disabled by Normality). 1 Jak ostatně napovídá i název, koncepce výstavy vycházela z teze, že idea " normálního " je právě tou mříž-kou, která sama produkuje " postižení ". Cílem bylo otevřít prostor pro reflexi a nové promýšlení významů přikládaných " postižení " a alteritě, ale zejména tomu, co považujeme za normální a proč se touha " být normální " stala obecně sdílenou životní ambicí. Tedy otevřít prostor pro promýšlení sociálních vztahů, které by nebylo uzavřeno v klecovém lůžku jednoznačných výkladů, významů a binárních protikladů " normalita " versus " postižení ". Umělecké práce i historické materiály, které výstava Postiženi normalitou představila, nahlížejí na alteritu a " postižení " nikoliv jako na téma diagnos-ticko-statistických manuálů či kategorii na škále sociálního zabezpečení, ale především jako formu a výsledek sociálních vztahů a situací. Jednotlivé tematické sekce výstavy mapovaly hlavní kulturní diskurzy, které se na pro-dukci a správě " postižení " podílejí, a zároveň tematizovaly formy rezistence vůči formám znevýhodnění. To, že převážná část vystavovaných uměleckých děl pochází od zahraničních umělkyň a umělců, se kurátorský tým snažil kompenzovat snahou o reflexi dobového i současného kontextu v českých 1 Výstavu souborně představí katalog (Anděl, v tisku).
Research Interests:
"I was trying to capture my shock on waking, when I went out of the tent and realised that after the blizzard last night it had been transformed into a pile of snow. I'm mainly surprised that I was able to cope with the winter, even... more
"I was trying to capture my shock on waking, when I went out of the tent and realised that after the blizzard last night it had been transformed into a pile of snow. I'm mainly surprised that I was able to cope with the winter, even though it wasn't easy at all. The photograph reminds me of everything I went through in this tent. Winter, the fire in the tent, when I almost got stuck inside, and also how the girls from Jako doma (Homelike) helped me find a new tent after the fire."
A tent almost buried in snow, provisional, and yet the only available and permanent housing. Inside it everything a person can own when they own almost nothing. The photograph speaks loudly about embodiment, corporeality, and bio-social precarity, even though what might seem to link the photograph to the subject of this issue is missing from it: the body. This issue devoted to feminist thought on embodiment and corporeality opens with a cover photograph authored by Helena Kracíková when she, along with other women without a home, but with a camera, documented the world around them over the course of three years and thus created a project called My World without a Home. And Helena Kracíková is also the author of the words prefacing this editorial. In many ways Kracíková's photograph is not just a comment on current directions in feminist theory of embodiment and corporeality. It also leads us to reflect on notions and conceptualisations of the body, materiality, and embodied becoming that resist the simple substantivisation of the body. That the expected reference point is ostensibly 'voided' is not an invitation to abstraction, not an invitation to vacate or displace the material body. On the contrary, it opens up room to reflect on material corporality through its relationship to its surroundings – for example, to reflect on how the concept of the body changes in relation to the objects that become part of our corporeality and bodily experience (like the snow-covered crutch poised in front of the tent in the photograph) or in relation to the other bodies that care for us, that help us to survive, that desire, that we touch.
A tent almost buried in snow, provisional, and yet the only available and permanent housing. Inside it everything a person can own when they own almost nothing. The photograph speaks loudly about embodiment, corporeality, and bio-social precarity, even though what might seem to link the photograph to the subject of this issue is missing from it: the body. This issue devoted to feminist thought on embodiment and corporeality opens with a cover photograph authored by Helena Kracíková when she, along with other women without a home, but with a camera, documented the world around them over the course of three years and thus created a project called My World without a Home. And Helena Kracíková is also the author of the words prefacing this editorial. In many ways Kracíková's photograph is not just a comment on current directions in feminist theory of embodiment and corporeality. It also leads us to reflect on notions and conceptualisations of the body, materiality, and embodied becoming that resist the simple substantivisation of the body. That the expected reference point is ostensibly 'voided' is not an invitation to abstraction, not an invitation to vacate or displace the material body. On the contrary, it opens up room to reflect on material corporality through its relationship to its surroundings – for example, to reflect on how the concept of the body changes in relation to the objects that become part of our corporeality and bodily experience (like the snow-covered crutch poised in front of the tent in the photograph) or in relation to the other bodies that care for us, that help us to survive, that desire, that we touch.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Globalization, Disability Studies, Critical Disability Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and 3 moreNeoliberalism, Neoliberal ideologies, and Neoliberal Economies in the Postcolony, Social Movements, Political Ecology, Indigeneity, Cultures of Disposession, Urban Form in Asia, Non-Linear Systems, Fieldwork and Disruptive Epistemologies, Biopolitics, India
The journal Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research (Gender, rovné příležitosti, výzkum) invites submissions for a special issue examining concepts and theories of the body, embodiment, bodymind and corporeality within feminist theory and... more
The journal Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research (Gender, rovné příležitosti, výzkum) invites submissions for a special issue examining concepts and theories of the body, embodiment, bodymind and corporeality within feminist theory and research practice. Given the close relations between the development of feminist thought, gender concepts, and theorisations of the body, this special issue wishes to offer a space for reflection on the current state of the field. Inquiries into the ways in which bodies are classified, disciplined, normalized, deployed by biopolitical technologies, as well as the ways in which bodies become utilised in expressions of (conditioned) agency have been essential to the development of thinking about gender and gender order. Thus, the history of thinking gender coalesces with the history of thinking about body and materiality.
This special issue focuses on the import of the body and corporeality for feminist thought and research; it wishes to draw attention to the subjective (and subjectifying) experience of the body’s materiality and the ways subjective experiences are anchored in social structures and technologies of power. Likewise, the special issue asks how subjectivity comes to expression through corporeality and how the body itself materialises through various discursive enunciations. We seek articles that address the materiality of the body from various perspectives, as well as texts that analyse the body’s representations and narratives throughout different historical periods. On the theoretical and methodological front, the issue seeks to use the central and eastern European contexts and experiences to challenge and rethink the concepts of the body and corporeality defined by Western (and Northern) experiences and epistemologies. Furthermore, we wish to open up space for reflections of the ways in which the prevalent neoliberal ideologies and practices of power test foundations of body/corporeality theories.
Body/corporeality theories and approaches are, by definition, interdisciplinary. Thus, we welcome contributions from all academic fields. We particularly welcome contributions that are related to (but not limited to) the following topics and themes:
• Racialised/gendered/sexualised/disabled bodies and corporealities
• Somatisation of disability, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity
• Fat bodies, Crip bodies, Mad bodies, bodies out of proportions, perverse bodies, body and excess/body of excess
• Corporeality in relation to health, illness and otherness
• Gender dimensions of biological citizenship and bioethics
• Bodies as a tool of discipline and/or resistance
• Body and epistemology, embodied epistemologies
• Body and feminist critiques of ontology
• Body and feminist methodologies
• Corporeality, temporality and space
• Body, affect theory and materiality
• Labour and material corporeality, immaterial labour and global capitalism
• Gender and emotions, gendered emotional labour and body work
Please submit abstracts no later than November 30, 2014 both to the journal genderteam@soc.cas.cz as well as to guest editors: jmarhan@kss.zcu.cz and cakaba@seznam.cz. Mark the submissions clearly „BODY“ in the subject theme of the email. Full versions of the articles will follow the Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research submission guidelines (www.genderonline.cz) and are to be submitted by August 31, 2015. The publication of the issue is planned for 2016. Editors will be happy to discuss possible submissions prior to the abstract deadline. We also welcome book reviews, conference reports or other theme-relevant information.
This special issue focuses on the import of the body and corporeality for feminist thought and research; it wishes to draw attention to the subjective (and subjectifying) experience of the body’s materiality and the ways subjective experiences are anchored in social structures and technologies of power. Likewise, the special issue asks how subjectivity comes to expression through corporeality and how the body itself materialises through various discursive enunciations. We seek articles that address the materiality of the body from various perspectives, as well as texts that analyse the body’s representations and narratives throughout different historical periods. On the theoretical and methodological front, the issue seeks to use the central and eastern European contexts and experiences to challenge and rethink the concepts of the body and corporeality defined by Western (and Northern) experiences and epistemologies. Furthermore, we wish to open up space for reflections of the ways in which the prevalent neoliberal ideologies and practices of power test foundations of body/corporeality theories.
Body/corporeality theories and approaches are, by definition, interdisciplinary. Thus, we welcome contributions from all academic fields. We particularly welcome contributions that are related to (but not limited to) the following topics and themes:
• Racialised/gendered/sexualised/disabled bodies and corporealities
• Somatisation of disability, gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity
• Fat bodies, Crip bodies, Mad bodies, bodies out of proportions, perverse bodies, body and excess/body of excess
• Corporeality in relation to health, illness and otherness
• Gender dimensions of biological citizenship and bioethics
• Bodies as a tool of discipline and/or resistance
• Body and epistemology, embodied epistemologies
• Body and feminist critiques of ontology
• Body and feminist methodologies
• Corporeality, temporality and space
• Body, affect theory and materiality
• Labour and material corporeality, immaterial labour and global capitalism
• Gender and emotions, gendered emotional labour and body work
Please submit abstracts no later than November 30, 2014 both to the journal genderteam@soc.cas.cz as well as to guest editors: jmarhan@kss.zcu.cz and cakaba@seznam.cz. Mark the submissions clearly „BODY“ in the subject theme of the email. Full versions of the articles will follow the Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research submission guidelines (www.genderonline.cz) and are to be submitted by August 31, 2015. The publication of the issue is planned for 2016. Editors will be happy to discuss possible submissions prior to the abstract deadline. We also welcome book reviews, conference reports or other theme-relevant information.
Research Interests: Feminist Theory, Sociology of Work, Queer Theory, Fat Studies, Feminist Philosophy, and 9 moreGlobalisation and Development, Feminism, Phenomenology of the body, Affect (Cultural Theory), New Materialism, Feminist Political Theory, Mad Studies, Antropology of the Body, and Critical Disability Theory
Konceptualizace zdraví a nemoci, forem stigmatizace, hendikepu a znevýhodnění či fungování ústavních institucí doposud zásadně ovlivňují sociologické a sociálněvědné diskuze (srov. Goffmann, Parsons, Zola, aj.). Současné konceptualizace... more
Konceptualizace zdraví a nemoci, forem stigmatizace, hendikepu a znevýhodnění či fungování ústavních institucí doposud zásadně ovlivňují sociologické a sociálněvědné diskuze (srov. Goffmann, Parsons, Zola, aj.). Současné konceptualizace rizikové společnosti, medikalizace, biomedikalizace a reflexivní modernity pak dále dokumentují, že " život jako takový " , slovy Nikolase Rose (2007), se stal jedním z klíčových témat současné sociální teorie. Tyto proudy sociologického zkoumání pojmenovávají zásadní proměny nejenom na poli politik zdraví, biomedikalizace společenských struktur a technologií těla, ale obecně proměny " politického " v kontextu pozdně kapitalistické globalizované společnosti. Zároveň se již od poloviny minulého století v zahraničí rozvíjí obor disability studies, který studuje formy i struktury systematického znevýhodnění a dynamiky exkluze a inkluze lidí s postižením. Disability studies také tematizují, jakými způsoby se preskripce zdatnosti a zdraví ustavují jako společenský normativ, jak formují individuální i kolektivní prožívání tělesnosti, identit, i možnosti aktérství. Navrhované monotematické číslo si klade za cíl nabídnout prostor k dialogu mezi různými proudy a podobory sociologie (sociologie medicíny, gender studies, teorie moderny, sociologie hendikepu aj.) a disability studies. Tento dialog je zvláště produktivní v tématech v současnosti dobře ustavených i v české sociologii, jako je problematika stárnutí, umírání a " čtvrtého věku " , proměna ústavní péče a proces tzv. deinstitucionalizace, politiky sociálního státu, formy sociálního vyloučení, prekarizace a chudoby, i emancipačních a sociálních hnutí nesených zájmy lidí s postižením. Tento dialog také slibuje prohloubení a obohacení reflexe sociálních procesů specificky v českém a východoevropském kontextu. Navrhované monotematické číslo zve k mapování toho, jakým způsobem se odehrávají proměny v uvažování o zdraví a nemoci, péči a zabezpečení, zdatnosti a nemohoucnosti, životě a smrti v kontextu " transformací " společenských režimů a politicko-ideologických rámců mezi státním socialismem a neoliberálním kapitalismem, včetně jeho re-strukturací posledních let. Záměrem monotematického čísla je představit témata, která rezonují v českém prostředí a přemýšlet o nich z genderové a feministické perspektivy. Téma těla a tělesnosti je bytostně interdisciplinární. Velmi proto uvítáme texty, které svou povahou nabídnou inspiraci pro genderová a feministická studia z různých disciplín. Připravované číslo časopisu si klade za cíl prezentovat témata, kterým se v českém kontextu nedostává zatím výraznější pozornosti.
Research Interests:
"Studia postižení" nabízejí multidisciplinární pohled na sociomateriální uspořádání a životní situace, v nichž se přesvědčení o tělesné či kognitivní jinakosti stává podnětem pro konstrukci "postižení", tedy relativně stálého, společensky... more
"Studia postižení" nabízejí multidisciplinární pohled na sociomateriální uspořádání a životní situace, v nichž se přesvědčení o tělesné či kognitivní jinakosti stává podnětem pro konstrukci "postižení", tedy relativně stálého, společensky legitimizovaného zjednávání některých lidí či typů zkušenosti jakožto nenormálních, méně hodnotných či nezpůsobilých. Autorky a autoři účastníci se této sekce vycházejí z de-naturalizovaného pohledu na ne/způsobilost, přičemž tento pojem "odkazuje ke způsobům, jakými jsou jedinci buď uznávání způsobilými, nebo jsou naopak této společenské legitimizace zbavováni a ,postihováni', na základě toho, zda (ne)naplňují společenské normy a očekávání ,normální' sociální ,funkčnosti'" (Kolářová 2012: 55). Zatímco však např. poststrukturalisticky orientované disability studies mnohdy objasňují postižení jako "mocný, normalizující diskurs, jehož původ je možné hledat v lékařských vědách či v širším spektru organizujících aktivit a zájmů souvisejících se zákonodárstvím a vládními orgány", předpokládajíce, že tento diskurs "utváří vnímání a myšlení lidí a koherentním způsobem se materializuje v praktikách, tělech a vztazích" (Moser 2005: 668), příspěvky zde představené se zabývají původem, sociomaterialitou, mechanismy zjednávání a působností mnohočetných diskursů postižení, jakož i jejich vzájemnými interakcemi s dalšími, více či méně zneschopňujícími či uschopňujícími diskursy. Kromě hledání mnohočetné "pravdy" postižení – to jest kromě popisu situovaných, heterogenních a proměnlivých socio-materiálních uspořádání, která stojí "za" fantasmaty nedostatečnosti, selhání a stigmatu – nabízejí také úvahy o dopadech různých "pravd" na životy těch, jichž se týkají především. Oscilují tak mezi kritickým, paranoidním čtením postižení a ne/způsobilosti, založeným na "hermeneutice podezřívavosti" a zaměřeným především na odhalování skrytých mechanismů útlaku a vylučování, a čtením reparativním, umožňujícím barvitější a tvořivější uchopení složitých vztahů vzájemné ne/závislosti a zne/užívání (Sedgwick 2003). Od základní otázky, jakými způsoby společnost znevýhodňuje osoby s "postižením", se tak posouvají ke zkoumání "rozličných způsobů, jimiž lidé a komunity čerpají posilu z objektů kultury, jejímž veřejně proklamovaným cílem často je žádnou posilu jim neposkytovat" (Sedgwick 2003: 151).