Bio:
Margaret Denike is a professor of political theory in the Department of Political Science and the Coordinator of the Law and Society Program at Dalhousie University. She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Thought (York), an LL.M. in Law (Queen?s), and an M.A. (UBC) and B.A. (Simon Fraser University) in English and Humanities. Formerly a professor and program coordinator in Gender Studies and of International Human Rights, her teaching, research, and writing cover topics such as theories of human rights; feminist and queer philosophies; the political activism of sexual and racial minorities; constitutional equality jurisprudence; state-sanctioned discrimination and persecution; biopolitics and genealogical inquiry; and the politics of terror and security. She has long been active in non-government organizations and services that engage in legal education, social justice advocacy, and law reform initiatives to advance sexual and racial equality. Recent publications include 'The Racialization of White Man's Polygamy, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy (2010); 'Engendering [In]Security and Terror: On the Protection Racket of Security States,' in Ann Ferguson and Mecke Nagel, eds. Dancing With Iris. Oxford University Press (2008); and Making Equality Rights Real: Securing Substantive Equality Under the Charter, ed. [with Fay Farady and Kate Stephenson] (2006).
Title of paper:
'Changing Bodies, Changing Minds: Queer Theory and the Politics of Affect'
Abstract:
Queer theory and cultural studies over the past decade have given rise to the development and refinement of affect theory, that is, to analyses of the conditions and expressions of emotional and subconscious bodily responses to external stimuli. Inflected by cognitive science and communication technologies, the 'affective turn' or the 'turn to affect' as it has been described by several authors, has been marked by an expressed departure away from attending to conscious, rational processes, and a general move to appreciating the significance of bodily expressions of affects such as fear, shame, disgust, or joy, and specifically, to the normative implications and politics of such affects. This paper will consider the extent to which such theoretical developments mark a significant paradigm shift in feminist and queer theory from the representational and identitarian frames (i.e., from what bodies/identities are to a consideration of what bodies/affects do). In particular, this paper addresses the implications of these developments for human rights activism for sexual minorities, for which identity politics have long been foundational, if not the very condition of their legal strategy.