The Department of Gender Studies will be organising a public lecture entitled 'Asking difficult questions: identities, power, identity politics, children and the role of universities'. The speaker is Prof. Debbie Epstein.
The public lecture will be held on Wednesday 16 October from 17:30 to 19:00 in Hall A, Gateway Building (GWHA).
After an autobiographical introduction, Prof. Epstein will begin by drawing on Stuart Hall’s writings about identity and identification before going on to referring her work with Richard Johnson on children’s identities. Growing up in South Africa taught her much about inequalities and the dangers of basing politics entirely on identity rather than on materiality, and the particular problems that arise when identity as a victim becomes dangerous both when those who experience or have experienced victimisation become powerful and when those in more powerful positions feel threatened by opposition to their dominance.
She will then point, briefly, to some problems with theorising inequality through intersectionality, proposing that Stuart Hall’s theory of articulation and conjuncture are more useful both for theory and for political action. She will move on from there to return to some of her early work with young children, to discuss the idea of ‘informed consent’ and what this means in the context of current identity politics and sex/gender. The final section before concluding explores the reasons why universities are finding it so difficult to support academic freedom in the current context.
She will then point, briefly, to some problems with theorising inequality through intersectionality, proposing that Stuart Hall’s theory of articulation and conjuncture are more useful both for theory and for political action. She will move on from there to return to some of her early work with young children, to discuss the idea of ‘informed consent’ and what this means in the context of current identity politics and sex/gender. The final section before concluding explores the reasons why universities are finding it so difficult to support academic freedom in the current context.