The Critical Femininities Research Cluster at the Centre for Feminist Research at York Univ. (Web)
Time: 15.-17.08.2025
Venue: virtual space – via York
Proposals by: 22.03.2025
Connection: joining, uniting, fastening, bringing together. Audre Lorde highlighted how when we “make connection with our similarities and our differences” (53), we remind ourselves of our own and others’ affective capacity. Femininity can be a rich and creative site of connectivity that expands beyond colonial imaginaries of womanhood and gender. Critical femininities is a site where we can connect, disconnect, and reconnect with the world, each other, and our own gendered selves. Connections can be tangible and intangible, with these boundaries being increasingly blurred as technologically mediated communication methods saturate our lives.
Critical Femininities is a growing field that seeks to develop nuanced critiques of femininity in all its variations beyond its characterization as a patriarchal imposition and where femininity is not synonymous with ‘woman’ (Dahl 2012, Taylor & Hoskin 2023, 79). Rethinking femininity as a concept opens space for a dialogue on the complex, multidimensional feminine expressions beyond heteronormative relations. Additionally, the field of critical femininities offers alternative frameworks centering connection through community building and a love politics that emphasizes a praxis of care extending beyond the personal and into the building of political communities (Nash, 2019).
This conference marks half a decade of cultivating digital community dialogue around critical femininities, opening up intentional digital space for expanding normative definitions of connection. There are also possibilities in the ways we disconnect. As Alyson K. Spurgas (2021) writes, “there is promise in embracing a fracturing, in falling apart—as antidote to the normative and neoliberal logic of keeping it together.” There is value in interrogating the connective void left when white supremacy, colonization, ableism, transphobia, misogyny, and other violent structures disconnect us from our femininities. The potential inherent in diving into disconnection also leaves room for exploring unexpected or idiosyncratic instances of re-connection to femininity.
The organisers invite you to connect with us through submissions that reflect diverse critical connections for the fifth annual Critical Femininities Conference. Possible themes may include (but are not limited to): Read more … (Web)
Source: qstudy-l-request@mailman.rice.edu