The International Journal of Badiou Studies is now accepting submissions for their February 2015 issue on queer theory and Badiou. Deadline for abstracts is August 1, 2014.
Read the full CFP below.
S(♀): Towards a Queer Badiouian Feminism
Guest Edited by: Dominic Fox, Lucca Fraser and Michael O’Rourke
The February 2015 issue of Badiou Studies will consider the potential that Badiou’s thinking harbours for both feminist and queer theories. Despite the fact that there has been very little feminist engagement with Badiou’s philosophy, and even less queer work on him, it is arguable that the lineaments of a queer Badiouian feminism can be discovered both in the work itself and its take-up by feminist and queer critics. Badiou’s own writings have a complicated relationship with and to queer feminism given that, as many feminist critics have pointed out, Badiou seems to lapse into positions, wittingly or not, which could be construed as heteronormative, phallocentric, transphobic or heterosexist. Yet, on the other hand, we have Badiou’s theories of the subject and his appeal in Being and Event to the female symbol (♀) as figuring a new world, ♀ figuring the situation that will have been, from the perspective of S, after the truth of ♀ has been forced. As well as this work on the generic, there are the essays on the scene of love, sexuality and the couple, which refer not only to heterosexual love. In terms of anti-identitarian queer theories, Badiou’s understanding of love suggests that there are a number of acts that any person can perform or positions that they can take up which do not solidify into identities.
This issue of Badiou Studies seeks to address the potentials and pitfalls of Badiou’s work for feminist and queer theories. In staging such a mutually enriching encounter we suggest that feminist and queer political thought stands to gain something from this set of rapprochements with Badiou; feminist and queer thinking may be reoriented by the latter so as to escape the menace of reactionary identity politics and refuse any continuity with democratic materialism, without simply lapsing into the sort of false universalism that queer and feminist thought has done so much to dismantle. To paraphrase Badiou from Theory of the Subject, ‘Marxism is the discourse with which the proletarian sustains itself as subject. We must never let go of this idea’. The premise of this issue is that ‘it is by putting Badiou to work in this way that we can conceive feminism as the discourse with which woman sustains herself as subject. We must never let go of this idea’.
Prospective articles should be in the range of 5,000-8,000 words, prepared for blind review, and accompanied by an abstract of approximately 250 words. Abstracts for proposed articles should be sent by the 1st of August 2014, with full papers to be submitted by the 1st of October 2014. As always, we also warmly invite reports about conferences, symposia, lectures, masterclasses and other pertinent events. Authors should follow the standard guidelines for online submission.
In accordance with the ethos of Badiou Studies we will accept articles in supported world languages, although an English abstract is required for all submissions.
Please send all abstracts, papers and enquiries to: [email protected].