The Hogarth Press

‘Yet I’m the only woman in England free to write what I like. The others must be thinking of series’ & editors.’ Woolf’s 1925 homage to the impact of the Hogarth Press on her career is well known, signifying a new sense of herself as a woman writer in command of the means of creative production. Less well known is how pervasive were her private and public negotiations with the narratological implications of the feminist materialism she cultivated as a printer and publisher. This article reviews the state of the field, re-reads her early short fiction in the context of her typesetting experiments, which resonate with the conflicted history of women in the printing trades, and argues for a revisionist understanding of Woolf’s feminist modernism as isomorphic with the Hogarth Press.

Beyond the Nature/Culture Division. Building Complementary Knowledge on Disease

The aim of the article is to present successful instances of building complementary knowledge on disease which go beyond the traditional division between natural and socio-cultural sciences. I argue that this is partially possible due to the changes in biological narratives and feminism’s attitude towards biology, with reciprocal references. First, I describe selected trends in the philosophy of biology which reflect changes in biological research towards more non-reductionist approaches. Then, I present some important aspects of the recent current in feminist studies called ‘new feminist materialism,’ and underline its clear attempt at combining research results from physics, biology, humanities, and social sciences. Finally, I present some main facets of studies on disease: in feminist reflection, Ludwik Fleck’s psycho-sociology of scientific knowledge, and in the medical humanities approach.

A Conversation Between Dual and Triple System Theories and Social Reproduction Theory

This article attempts to understand if we can speak of a transition from Feminist Marxism to Feminist Materialism and Social Reproduction Theory, using a critical apparatus consisting of theorists such as Silvia Federici, Heidi Hartmann, as well as SRT feminists like Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharaya, Nancy Fraser, and Susan Ferguson. Starting from the proponents of the “Wages for Housework” campaign, I will make a short incursion into dual and triple system theory, to the unitary theory of Social Reproduction.

CAREFUL ATTUNEMENTS: THE CHOREOGRAPHING OF CARE THROUGH SMARTPHONE PRACTICES DURING, AND AFTER, CRISIS

In this paper we explore how smartphone users in Victoria (Australia) used mobile and non-mobile media to find and manage information, emotions and networks during the 2019-2020 Australian summer bushfire crisis. Through arts-based methods that deployed drawing, critical reflection and group discussion, we sought to use techniques that elicit the emotional responses and motivations of our participants in and after the crisis. We draw on the concept of affective witnessing (Papailias, 2016; Richardson and Schankweiler, 2019) as a process whereby the boundaries between mourner and witness blur through the affective intensity of mobile media. We contextualise affective witnessing in terms of feminist materialism of care practices (Pols, 2012; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011; Lupton and Hjorth, forthcoming) to focus on the importance of taking seriously care—care at a distance of family and friends, self-care and care of intimate digital publics.

Introduction

The introduction situates this volume into different theoretical and historiographical traditions. It starts by examining the meanings of performativity through a reading of Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse (1977), as his analysis of the utterance “I love you” perfectly illustrates the bodily effects of emotions. The next section moves on to discuss the theoretical grounding of the concept “emotional bodies,” linking the work on emotional practices as developed by anthropologists, cultural historians and sociologists such as Monique Scheer, Jo Labanyi, and Sarah Ahmed with the feminist materialism of Judith Butler and Karen Barad. Finally, the last section makes connections between chapters in different sections, highlighting the common ideas underpinning this book.