Laplanche and the anti-racist unconscious, rewriting seduction, listening to the noise

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Bogdan Popa
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Race Studies ◽  
Soviet Film ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Violence

This article proposes the idea of an anti-racist unconscious to respond to problems raised by Jean Laplanche’s conceptualisation of ‘enigmatic messages’. In reversing the dynamic between the seducer and the seduced, I ask: What if a racialised person produces messages that will disturb a legacy of slavery and its history of violence? In drawing on an intersectional analytic inspired by queer theory, post-socialist theory, critical race studies and Roma studies, this article suggests that Laplanche’s enigmatic messages (‘noises’) can function as epistemological interventions seeking to decolonise a Euro-American imagination. Given that the unconscious has been conceptualised according to modes of storytelling that speak from the standpoint of institutions of white domination, I show that the unconscious can function as an anti-racist epistemological site. I focus my analysis on a Soviet film (The Fiddlers, Loteanu, 1971) to identify how enigmatic messages lead to Roma tactics such as the counterfeit and the curse, which respond to racialised violence either by terrifying the oppressors or by taking back resources from them.

Introduction

Queer Faith ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Melissa E. Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Race Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Change Ambivalence

The introduction surveys this book’s stakes in debates within queer theory, critical race studies, early modern studies, and postsecular studies. Discussing the affordances of taking seriously the religious metaphors that continue to shape discourses of secular love, it outlines the ways in which Renaissance love lyrics provide a valuable archive to modern queer challenges to norms of monogamous coupledom and sovereign subjectivity. It proposes that rather than assume the coherence of faith, this poetry explores an ethics of promiscuity in which awareness of shared vulnerability entails a more challenging acceptance of shared propensity to change, ambivalence, and self-deceit. It further traces the history of the concept of secularity from its Protestant roots and, joining a number of postsecular theorists, argues that attending to the persistence of religious thought in modern culture can compel a confrontation with the racial dimensions of queer views of the autonomy of desire. Moreover, in suggesting that we may never have been secular, the introduction shows how attentiveness to Christian theology’s queer assumptions can help to contest normative associations of Christianity with unique innocence and morality, and a progressive periodization that sets modernity off from its others.

Cultural Melancholy

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jermaine Singleton
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Social Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Studies ◽  
Performance Culture ◽  
Unresolved Grief ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
And Performance

A daring cultural and literary studies investigation, this book explores the legacy of unresolved grief produced by ongoing racial oppression and resistance in the United States. Using analysis of literature, drama, musical performance, and film, the book demonstrates how rituals of racialization and resistance transfer and transform grief discreetly across time, consolidating racial identities and communities along the way. It also argues that this form of impossible mourning binds racialized identities across time and social space by way of cultural resistance efforts. The book develops the concept of “cultural melancholy” as a critical response to scholarship that calls for the clinical separation of critical race studies and psychoanalysis; excludes queer theoretical approaches from readings of African American literatures and cultures; and overlooks the status of racialized performance culture as a site of serious academic inquiry and theorization. In doing so, the book weaves critical race studies, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and performance studies into conversation to uncover a host of hidden dialogues—psychic and social, personal and political, individual and collective—for the purpose of promoting a culture of racial grieving, critical race consciousness, and collective agency.

scholarly journals Antidiscrimination Meets Integration Policies: Exploring New Diversity-Related Challenges in Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 221
Author(s):  
Tina Magazzini
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Race Studies ◽  
Managing Diversity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Migrant Integration ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Contemporary European societies are increasingly diverse. Migration both within and to Europe has contributed over the past decades to the rise of new religious, racial, ethnic, social, cultural and economic inequality. Such transformations have raised questions about the (multi-level) governance of diversity in Europe, thus determining new challenges for both scholars and policy-makers. Whilst the debate around diversity stemming from migration has become a major topic in urban studies, political science and sociology in Europe, Critical Race Studies and Intersectionality have become central in US approaches to understanding inequality and social injustice. Among the fields where ‘managing diversity’ has become particularly pressing, methodological issues on how to best approach minorities that suffer from multiple discrimination represent some of the hottest subjects of concern. Stemming from the interest in putting into dialogue the existing American scholarship on CRT and anti-discrimination with the European focus on migrant integration, this paper explores the issue of integration in relation to intersectionality by merging the two frames. In doing so, it provides some observations about the complementarity of a racial justice approach for facing the new diversity-related challenges in European polity. In particular, it illustrates how Critical Race Studies can contribute to the analysis of inequality in Europe while drawing on the integration literature.

scholarly journals Thinking feminist and gender studies now

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lene Myong ◽  
Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen ◽  
Mathias Klitgård ◽  
Ingvil Hellstrand
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Studies ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The University

The field of gender studies is changing and solidifying at the same time. What kinds of developments can we trace in contemporary gender studies, and what is at stake for gender studies now? What are important questions for/in the field? How come gender studies in Norway (and the rest of Scandinavia) tend to shoulder or “house” adjacent fields that also deal with questions of power and difference, such as critical race studies for example? Why are we working in/with gender studies, and how do we contribute towards advancing gender and feminist studies in theory, teaching, politics and practice? In this roundtable, scholars in the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Stavanger grapple with these questions through examples from our own research and teaching. The purpose for this roundtable is to continue our local discussions and thinking with the field of gender studies nationally and internationally.

Challenging boundaries to expand frontiers in gender and policy studies

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuela Lombardo ◽  
Petra Meier
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Race Studies ◽  
Advance Knowledge ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Gender and policy studies needs to face challenges and cross boundaries if the discipline is to develop. This article argues that gender and policy studies needs to explicitly foreground the centrality of politics – the analysis of power – in approaching policy. The discipline confronts boundaries in relation to inclusivity, diversity and relevance. Inclusive gender equality demands challenging the hegemonising and marginalising boundaries in the field, which contributes to its relevance by placing politics and power centre stage. Openness to the diversity of gender and policy approaches, a more systematic and thoughtful application of intersectionality, cooperation with LGBTQI+, critical race studies and normative political theory provide opportunities to challenge boundaries and advance knowledge. We argue that explicit reflexivity about power dynamics and knowledge production, employing a plurality of approaches, will better equip the discipline to navigate major challenges and crises, and offer more nuanced democratic and egalitarian societal contributions.

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