Semiotics of the Kitchen - Martha Rosler - 1975

From A to Z, Rosler "shows and tells" the ingredients of the housewife's day, giving us a tour that names and mimics the ordinary with movements more samurai than suburban. Rosler's slashing gesture as she forms the letters of the alphabet in the air with a knife and fork, is a rebel gesture, punching through the "system of harnessed subjectivity" from the inside out.

"I was concerned with something like the notion of 'language speaking the subject,' and with the transformation of the woman herself into a sign in a system of signs that represent a system of food production, a system of harnessed subjectivity." - Martha Rosler

“Non-material use-values are those goods produced within the housework process which have no material basis: affection, sexuality, companionship, “love,” and the like. These goods satisfy the individual’s non-material needs, which are as important for his/her reproduction as is a grilled steak or an ironed shirt….they are use-values for value.” -Leopoldina Fortunati from The Arcane of Reproduction

“To make the process of production and reproduction of labor-power function, other exchanges are also necessary. The most important of these “secondary” exchanges is that between the male worker and capital mediated by the female houseworker. This exchange and relation is required because the female houseworker’s reproduction cannot only consist of the use-values into which the wage can be transformed; it must also include the consumption of use-values which only the husband can and must produce. For although in this relation this housework is paid for by the wage, it must appear not so. Thus “love” enters the discourse, and the relation can be expressed in other non-money terms. Without love, capital would not be able to make this relation function, nor would it be able to isolate the male and female houseworker within the family.” -Leopoldina Fortunati from The Arcane of Reproduction

"No Church in the Wild: Queer Anarchy and Gaga Feminism."

The PSU Dept. of English Presents: The 2013 Kellogg Awards Ceremony. Featuring one of the world's leading gender and queer theorists, Jack Halberstam. whose talk is entitled, "No Church in the Wild: Queer Anarchy and Gaga Feminism."

In a new book on "The Wild" I turn to anarchist thought to elaborate a queer politics for this particular moment of crisis and renewal. As many thinkers have proposed recently, a turn to anarchy makes sense at this time precisely because people's faith in the state and in a politics of inclusion and assimilation is wearing thin, particularly in leftist circles; and, anti-hegemonic, anti-state and anti-assimilationist positions have been rendered thinkable by Occupy movements and other global expressions of radical dissent. My recent book, Gaga Feminism, in that it both calls for and describes an end to "the normal," or that form of state power that manages people by disciplining them in relation to a fantasised norm, could be called anarchist. And my book on failure, in that it breaks with the all or nothing logics of success driven by capitalism, could be characterized as anarchist critique. In this new project, I seek to make explicit the stakes of a queer investment in anarchy that both reaches back to punk movements from the 1970's for inspiration but also seeks other traditions of anarchy globally. 

Jack Halberstam is Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. Halberstam works in the areas of popular, visual and queer culture with an emphasis on subcultures. Halberstam's first book, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995), was a study of popular gothic cultures of the 19th and 20th centuries and it stretched from Frankenstein to contemporary horror film. The 1998 book, Female Masculinity (1998), made a ground breaking argument about non-male masculinity and tracked the impact of female masculinity upon hegemonic genders. In the book, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005), Halberstam described and theorized queer reconfigurations of time and space in relation to subcultural scenes and the emergence of transgender visibility. This book devotes several chapters to the topic of visual representation of gender ambiguity.  Halberstam is currently working on several projects including a book titled THE WILD on queer anarchy.

In The Queer Art of Failure (2011), Halberstam wrote about "about finding alternatives to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives."

Halberstam's latest book is Gaga Feminism (2012), is "a provocative manifesto of creative mayhem, a roadmap to sex and gender for the twenty-first century, that holds Lady Gaga as an exemplar of a new kind of feminism that privileges gender and sexual fluidity."

Eclectic Tech Carnival (/ETC) in Umeå 8-12 June 2009

/ECT 2007, Linz

/ETC is a week long gathering for women interested in technology, art and grass roots activism. At /ETC you can share experiences and search out opportunities for international collaborations through the use of technology and arts.

We will be exploring how we can use technology and art to connect with each other, deepen our understanding of each other's political contexts, develop strategies for grass roots activism to engage public and raise awareness on gender issues in correlation to usage of technology. In short we will explore new ways of interacting by means of technology and art.

/ETC is an "on the road-event", that is it is held in a new place each year. It was started by the organisation Genderchangers that aims to break stereotypical roles related to technology and encourage and support women to use technology, art and grass roots networks as a tool for social change.

During this 5 day long gathering there will be workshops, inspirational corners, panel discussions, field trips to local NGO's and much more. Come to Umeå, Sweden to be a part of this dynamic platform for exchange!

Activities will take place during the afternoons and evenings at HUMlab (Umeå University). You choose if you want to get a 5 day pass or 1 day pass. A 5 day pass costs 200 SEK (18 Euro) and a 1 day pass costs 50 SEK. Dinner will be served for a reasonable (inexpensive) price...

If you want to come to /ETC, give a workshop at the Carnival, make this happen as a volunteer. If you have any questions...don't hesitate to contact us!

On Facebook

Or mail the organisers /ECT

Four interesting texts online from Bev Skeggs

Four interesting texts online from Bev Skeggs, visiting researcher in gender studies here at Umea University. I saw her seminar "Ambivalence and Class: Bourdieu's Gender Troubles" and it clarified a lot about Bourdieu's work for me. Four texts from Professor Beverly Skeggs:

Ambivalence and Class: Bourdieu's Gender Troubles

Respectability – Becoming a Proper Person

Making Class Through Moral Extension on Reality TV

The Value of Intimacy: Moral Economies on Reality TV

All this material comes via the morally decent and respectable Center for Gender Studies at the Facualty for Medicine at Umeå University.