Publications and research from Washington University in St. Louis Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty associated with the Feminist Critical Analysis Seminars

Contemporary theoretical shifts toward affect emerged as a critique of post structuralism's failure to accommodate or even recognize those central facts about human experience that “cannot be translated into words without doing violence” (Anna Gibbs), such as: "a body's capacity to affect and to be affected" (Gregory Seigworth & Melissa Gregg). Following the line of this epistemological turn away from language, we invite different interpretations of affect and seek interdisciplinary approaches that examine connections between affect and feminist politics. We are interested in examining the relation between meaning and sense, representation and event, perception and experience, capital and objects of emotions, in order to try and answer the question about whether a focus on affect, not only as a force manifested on a personal level (as emotion), but as an impersonal intensity "of what the human shares with everything it is not" (Brian Massumi), can lead to reexamination of our views on feminist theory and politics. If feminism's "killjoy" capacity exposes "the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy"(Sara Ahmed), what are the dangers of turning the politics of happiness into a politics of anger, as Ahmed suggests? What are the "affective objects" that feminism is directed to? If affect is a force created between different bodies, is there a need for a renewed embodiment of feminist politics?

We encourage active participation and debate that will bring together disciplines from across the humanities, social sciences, art, political theory, cultural studies, philosophy, etc. In 2014, the annual course Feminist Critical Analysis will examine these more recent theoretical moves and consider their consequences for feminist scholarship and activism.

The course will be held at the Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik (www.iuc.hr) from May 26th to May 30th (2014). The course is co-directed by Professor Dasa Duhacek, University of Belgrade, Professor Ethel Brooks, Rutgers University and Distinguished Professor Linda Nicholson, Washington University.

Sponsored by The Center for Gender and Politics of the Belgrade University - Faculty of Political Sciences / The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey / The Program in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Washington University in St Louis

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Research from 2014

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Regulating Sex Work: Assimilation, Erotic Exceptionalism & Beyond
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D., Regulating Sex Work: Assimilationism, Erotic Exceptionalism and Beyond (March 21, 2014). California Law Review, February 2015, Forthcoming; Washington University in St. Louis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 14-03-04. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2412713

Abstract:

Most commentators on sex markets focus on the debate between abolitionists and those who defend and support professional sex work. This paper, instead, looks at debates within the pro-sex work camp, uncovering some unattended tensions and contradictions. It shows that, within this camp, some stress the labor aspect, urging that sex markets perpetuate a "vulnerable population" of workers, similar to others who perform highly risky and/or exploited labor, and should be regulated accordingly. In this view, sex work would be assimilated into other labor. Others, though, take a more anti-regulatory... Read More

Research from 2013

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Objects of Desire: Toward an Ethics of Sameness
Amber Jamilla Musser
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Amber Jamilla Musser. "Objects of Desire: Toward an Ethics of Sameness." Theory & Event 16.2 (2013).

Abstract:

Through an examination of objectum sexuality, an orientation in which people sexually orient themselves toward objects, this essay reflects on what constitutes sexuality, the nature of intimacy, and the agency of objects. Using the discourse of similarity, I suggest that we read objectum sexuality as a mode of understanding subjectivity under neoliberalism. I also suggest, however, that we read it as a phenomena that could open into an alternate set of ethics. More specifically, I argue that objectum sexuality allows us to think critically about the displacement of the subject,... Read More

Research from 2012

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Old Europe, New Europe, Eastern Europe: Reflections on a Minor Character in Fassbinder’s Ali, Fear Eats the Soul
Anca Parvulescu
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Parvulescu, A. (2012). Old Europe, New Europe, Eastern Europe: Reflections on a Minor Character in Fassbinder's Ali, Fear Eats the Soul. New Literary History 43(4), 727-750, http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2012.0035

Abstract:

In today's Europe, the term Eurosceptic often accompanies accusations of retrograde nationalism, irrational feelings, even fanaticism. When applied to Europe, skepticism, one of the critic's formative traits, acquires a bad reputation, as if it can only be an annihilating, rather than constructive, form of doubt. And yet skepticism is a much-needed critical affect, particularly when it comes to Europe. If we need to be skeptical of anything, it is Europe. Today one hears claims about Europe having become postnational, postracial, even post-Europe. How else can the literary and cultural critic... Read More

Research from 2011

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Introduction: Mass Incarceration and Masculinity through a Black Feminist Lense
Annette Ruth Appell and Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Annette Ruth Appell and Adrienne D. Davis, Introduction: Mass Incarceration and Masculinity Through a Black Feminist Lens, 37 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol’y 1 (2011), http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol37/iss1/2

Abstract:

Mass incarceration is one of the biggest obstacles to social justice and democratic equality in the United States. This nation leads the world in imprisonment. As Angela Davis contended, the "prison industrial complex is much more than the sum of all the jails and prisons in this country. It is a set of symbiotic relationships among correctional communities, transnational corporations, media conglomerates, guards’ unions, and legislative and court agendas." Other developed states use social welfare policy to develop citizens’ capabilities, which increase their employment and life prospects. In stark contrast,... Read More

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Bad Girls of Art and Law: Abjection, Power, and Sexuality Exceptionalism in (Kara Walker’s) Art and (Janet Halley’s) Law
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D., Bad Girls of Art and Law: Abjection, Power, and Sexuality Exceptionalism in (Kara Walker’s) Art and (Janet Halley’s) Law (June 8, 2011). Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, Forthcoming; Washington University in St. Louis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-06-09. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1628726

Abstract:

This paper seeks to make some connections between legal theorist Janet Halley and contemporary artist Kara Walker. It compares their recent oeuvre to show how both reject understandings of the interplay of sex, power, and subordination proffered by conventional "justice projects" - specifically civil rights’ and feminism’s articulations of bodily violence and violation as key modes of racial and gender injury and subordination. Neither of these two is the first to dispute such accounts of injury and identity; yet, what distinguishes them is that both attempt to ground their theoretical... Read More

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Erotic Entitlements Part I: A Reply to Sex Therapy in the Age of Viagra: "Money Can’t Buy Me Love"
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Adrienne D. Davis, Erotic Entitlements Part I: A Reply to Sex Therapy in the Age of Viagra: "Money Can't Buy Me Love", 35 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol’y 421 (2011), http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol35/iss1/19

Abstract:

An Essay is presented in response to Susan Stiritz and Susan Appleton's essay "Sex Therapy in the Age of Viagra: Money Can't Buy Me Love." The author states that the paper of Stiritz and Appleton refers to the dangerous power of viagra and charges it for having a dominative power rather than producing an equal interpersonal mutuality. He adds that the paper laid an increasing weakness on women's reproductive rights against their respect for the dominance of male's sexual pleasure.

... Read More

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European Kinship: Eastern European Women Go to Market
Anca Parvulescu
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Parvulescu, A. (2011). European Kinship: Eastern European Women Go to Market. Critical Inquiry 37(2), 187-213. The University of Chicago Press.

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Black Love is Not a Fairytale: African American Women, Romance, and Rhetoric
Rebecca A. Wanzo
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Wanzo, Rebecca. "Black Love is Not a Fairytale." Poroi 7, Iss. 2 (2011): Article 5. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.13008/2151-2957.1096

Abstract:

In 2009, the public witnessed an upsurge in media discussions about the lower marriage rates of professional black women. In the Unmarriageable Professional Black Woman discourse, the alleged pathological behavior of black men or black women causes marriage disparities, despite the fact that demographic data that can largely account for differences in marriage rates. This paper explores articulations of a heterosexual, and somewhat heteronormative, black female romantic imagination in the twenty-first century, and unpacks how the ideals and pathologies that subjects with various agendas attach to this imagination reveal the... Read More

Research from 2010

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Historic and Modern Social Movements for Reparations: The National Coalition for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and its Antecedents
Adjoa Aiyetoro and Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Aiyetoro, Adjoa and Davis, Adrienne D., Historic and Modern Social Movements for Reparations: The National Coalition for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and its Antecedents (May 31, 2010). Texas Wesleyan Law Review, Forthcoming; Washington University in St. Louis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-06-08. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1626991

Abstract:

Most of the legal scholarship on reparations for Blacks in America focuses on its legal or political viability. This literature has considered both procedural obstacles, such as statutes of limitations and sovereign immunity, as well as the substantive conception of a defensible cause of action. Indeed, Congressman John Conyers introduced H.R. 40, a bill to study reparations, in 1989 and every Congressional session since, and there have been three law suits that have received national attention. This Essay takes a different approach, considering reparations as a social movement with a... Read More

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Making Up is Hard to Do: Race/Gender/Sexual Orientation in the Law School Classroom
Robert S. Chang and Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Chang, Robert S. and Davis, Adrienne D., Making Up is Hard to Do: Race/Gender/Sexual Orientation in the Law School Classroom. Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010; Washington U. School of Law Working Paper No. 09-05-04; Seattle University School of Law Research Paper No. 10-10. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1408235

Abstract:

This exchange of letters picks up where Professors Adrienne Davis and Robert Chang left off in an earlier exchange that examined who speaks, who is allowed to speak, and what is remembered. Here, Professors Davis and Chang explore the dynamics of race, gender, and sexual orientation in the law school classroom. They compare the experiences of African American women and Asian American men in trying to perform as law professors, considering how makeup and other gender tools simultaneously assist and hinder such performances. Their exchange examines the possibility of bias... Read More

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Film Review: Gran Torino and Star Trek
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D., Film Review: Masculinity & Interracial Intimacy in 'Star Trek' and 'Gran Torino' (November 11, 2009). New Political Science Journal, Vol. 32, p. 163, 2010; Washington U. School of Law Working Paper No. 10-03-07. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1571713

Abstract:

Race has long been a central object of political reflection. The salience of racial difference remains hotly debated, figuring in both "utopian" and "dystopian" visions of America’s political future. If race is a primary configuration of "difference" and inequality in the nation, then intimacy between the races is often construed as either a bellwether of equality and political utopia or a re-inscribing of political dominance, typically represented as sexual predation by men against women. Quite expectedly, these political fantasies and fears are often played out at the multiplex, and we... Read More

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Introduction to the Symposium: The Politics of Identity After Identity Politics
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Adrienne D. Davis, Introduction: The Politics of Identity After Identity Politics, 33 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol’y 1 (2010), http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol33/iss1/2

Abstract:

The Essays in this volume seek to shed some light on the politics of identity after the 2008 Presidential election in which identity politics dominated. To explore how 2008 and its aftermath have shifted both academic and political debates, Professor Adrienne Davis invited scholars from a variety of disciplines who embrace diverse methodologies—political theory; cultural studies; history; and law. These authors explore identity politics as a field of academic inquiry; a cultural discourse; a legal claim; a negotiation of institutions and power; and a predicate for political alliances. Collectively, the... Read More

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Three Snapshots of Scholarly Engagement: Catharine MacKinnon’s Ethical Entrenchment, Transformative Politics, and Personal Commitment
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Adrienne D. Davis, Three Snapshots of Scholarly Engagement: Catharine MacKinnon's Ethical Entrenchment, Transformative Politics, and Personal Commitment, 46 Tulsa L. Rev. 15 (2010). Available at http://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/tlr/vol46/iss1/5

Abstract:

This short essay offers three snapshots of Catharine MacKinnon's work, exemplifying each of these common connotations of engagement - or the scholar modified.

Research from 2009

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Regulating Polygamy: Intimacy, Default Rules, and Bargaining for Equality
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D., Regulating Polygamy: Intimacy, Default Rules, and Bargaining for Equality (September 30, 2009). Columbia Law Review, Vol. 110, No. 8, 2010; Washington U. School of Law Working Paper No. 09-09-01. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1480906 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1480906

Abstract:

Most legal scholarship about polygamy has approached it in one of two ways. Some have framed it as a question of how far constitutional protection for religious freedom and privacy rights extends, including what we might think of as "intimacy liberty," particularly in light of Lawrence v. Texas. Others have debated decriminalization, based on the contested effects of polygamy on matters ranging from women’s subordination to fraudulent behavior to democracy. This Essay shifts attention from the constitutionality and decriminalization debates to a new set of questions: whether and how polygamy... Read More

Research from 2008

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Reading, Writing, and the Whip
Amber Jamilla Musser
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Musser, A. J.(2008). Reading, Writing, and the Whip. Literature and Medicine 27(2), 204-222. The Johns Hopkins University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lm.0.0034

Abstract:

Reading masochism as a literary phenomenon means exploring several layers of relationships—of literature and performance, of textuality and subjectivity—and the relationships among various practices of reading. I start with Krafft-Ebing and his practices of reading, examine the relationship between literature and practice, and end with an exploration of diagnosis and writing. Rousseau's Confessions exemplifies these rich layers, as a text with a life and readership of its own and as writing exercise, and exemplifies what Michel Foucault termed a "technology of the self." The link I am forging between Krafft-Ebing... Read More

Research from 2007

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The Professor's Desire: On Roland Barthes's The Neutral
Anca Parvulescu
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Parvulescu, A. (2007). The Professor's Desire. diacritics 37(1), 32-39. Johns Hopkins University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/dia.0.0018

Research from 2006

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The Adventure(S) of Blackness in Western Culture: An Epistolary Exchange on Old and New Identity Wars
Adrienne D. Davis and Robert S. Chang
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D. and Chang, Robert S., The Adventure(S) of Blackness in Western Culture: An Epistolary Exchange on Old and New Identity Wars. 39 UC Davis Law Review 1189 (2006); UNC Legal Studies Research Paper No. 06-1; Loyola-LA Legal Studies Paper No. 2006-20. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=874752

Abstract:

Through a series of letters, Professors Robert Chang and Adrienne Davis examine the politics of positionality in law and literary criticism. They use the scholarly debates and conversations around critical race theory and feminist legal theory as a starting point to formulate some thoughts about Critical Race Feminism ("CRF") and its future. The authors use the epistolary form as a literary device to allow them to collaborate on this project while maintaining their own voices. Thus, the letters are not dated.

The letters pay particular attention to various border crossings:... Read More

Research from 2005

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Three Jeromes: A Tribute to Professor Jerome Culp
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Adrienne D. Davis, Three Jeromes: A Tribute to Professor Jerome McCristal Culp, Jr., 50 Vill. L. Rev. 777 (2005). Available at http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr/vol50/iss4/3

Abstract:

Whatever our perspectival and methodological differences, one thing we can all agree on about Jerome as a scholar: the man was prolific. He published over twenty articles, plus book chapters and a book, all penned with eloquence and what we now recognize as quintessentially 'Jeromeesque" passion. He published in major symposia as well as the most prestigious law reviews. For those who do not know Jerome's work as well, and for those of us who do but are still taking in the volume of it, I thought I would offer... Read More

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Masochism: A Queer Subjectivity
Amber Jamilla Musser
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Musser, Amber. "Masochism: A Queer Subjectivity."Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge (11/12) (Fall 2005/Spring 2006). Available at http://www.rhizomes.net/issue11/musser.html

Abstract:

Judith Butler's Gender Trouble elaborates what may be called a queer subjectivity. Characterized by non-essential, performative identity, her theory has been criticized because, according to its critics, it does not give the subject political agency. Liberal theorists, such as Seyla Benhabib, have been particularly concerned with the political effects of this form of subjectivity on already marginalized social groups while other theorists, such as Susan Stryker and Ed Cohen, have articulated concern that the theory does not sufficiently account for embodiment, affect, and identity. This essay brings Deleuze's theory of... Read More

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To Die Laughing and to Laugh at Dying: Revisiting The Awakening
Anca Parvulescu
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Parvulescu, A. (2005). To Die Laughing and to Laugh at Dying: Revisiting The Awakening. New Literary History 36(3), 477-495. doi: 10.1353/nlh.2005.0047

Research from 2000

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Foreword--Symposium: Unbending Gender: Why Work and Family Conflict and What to Do About It
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D. "Straightening It Out: Joan Williams on Unbending Gender."American University Law Review 49, no.4 (February 2000): 823-849, http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/vol49/iss4/1/

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Foreword--Symposium: Gender, Work & Family Project Inaugural Feminist Legal Theory Lectur
Adrienne D. Davis and Joan C. Williams
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D. and Joan C. Williams. "Foreward [Foreword]." The American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 8, no.1 (2000): 1-12, http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/jgspl/vol8/iss1/1/

Research from 1997

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Identity Notes Part II: Redeeming the Body Politic
Adrienne D. Davis
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Davis, Adrienne D., Identity Notes Part II: Redeeming the Body Politic, 2 HARVARD LATINO LAW JOURNAL 267 (1997).

Abstract:

These remarks were given in April 1996 at the First Annual LatCrit Conference, co-sponsored by California Western Law School and the Harvard Latino Law Review. ... Political corpus, body politic, body of law, corporate law, body of evidence, body of knowledge, the footnote. ... While the body of Christ has not been used explicitly to order secular American law and political theory, a multi-dimensional analysis of his body in Western political theory would have to include its use at a critical historic moment as an organizing metaphor for the racial... Read More

Research from 1994

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Intepreting Gender
Linda Nicholson
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Nicholson, L. (1994). Interpreting Gender. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 20(1), 79-105. The University of Chicago Press.

Research from 1990

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Hutchins, Adler, and the University of Chicago: A Critical Juncture
Mary Ann Dzuback
Journal Article
Originally Published In: Dzuback, Mary Ann. "Hutchins, Adler, and the University of Chicago: A Critical Juncture. American Journal of Education vol. 99, no. 1 (Nov., 1990), 57-76, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1085540

Abstract:

As dean of Yale University's Law School, Robert Hutchins stressed social science theory and research as central to the university's work. Within a few years, as president of the University of Chicago, he abandoned the social sciences for philosophy and the great books. Hutchins's conversion seems ironic because it took place at an institution renowned for the work of its faculty in social science theory and research. This article is an attempt to make sense of Hutchins's shift in thinking at a critical juncture in his life and in the... Read More