One hand clapping: the phoneme and the nothing

In Écrits, Lacan proposes an “unthinkable list” of objects (a) that includes “the phoneme, the gaze, the voice – the nothing”. While the gaze and the voice have received extensive critical commentary, the phoneme and the nothing have gone practically unnoticed. I propose to theoretically construct the object (a) by means of an explication of Lacan’s enigmatic allusion to the phoneme and the nothing. I contend that the phoneme is the “ur-form” of the object (a), whose ontological status is nothing. As the ur-form of the object (a) (both structurally and genetically), the phoneme exemplifies the primary function of the structural causality of the Lacanian Real within the Symbolic Order, namely, the function of the bar resisting signification between signifier and signified. By developing the concept of the object (a) in relation to linguistics, psychoanalysis can reply to the persistent misunderstanding of Lacan’s position by deconstructive critics, such as Judith Butler.

Would the 'real' girl gamer please stand up? Gender, LAN cafes and the reformulation of the 'girl' gamer.

In this paper we consider the significance of cyber 'LAN' cafeacutes as sites where on and off-line practices meet in way that complicates binary notions of the gendered gamer. Existing research into computer games culture suggests a male dominated environment and points to girls' lower levels of competence and participation in games. Building on recent studies interested in the constitution of gender through engagement with online technologies, we draw on Judith Butler's politics of performative resignification, and conceptualise digital culture as a resource through which 'girl' gamers are mobilised and potentially reformulated, experiencing their gaming identities in contradictory ways, and fragmenting the category 'girl' in the very act of articulating their place in a male dominated gaming culture. It is argued that through the meeting of on and off-line practices, LAN cafeacutes operate as a location that is particularly amenable to reformulative work in relation to gendered gaming identities.

Double moves

"The more a practice is mastered, the more fully subjection is achieved. Submission and mastery take place simultaneously, and this paradoxical simultaneity constitutes the ambivalence of subjection" (Butler, 1997, p. 116).

In this paper, this quotation from Judith Butler is used as a framework for an analysis of the construction of the subject within the texts of the Queensland English Syllabus. Dr Honan describes the ways in which the rationalities of the syllabus construct this ambivalent subject position, of a subject who is at one and the same time, required to master the practices of literacy mandated in the syllabus, while becoming subjected to the requirements of these practices. In her recently completed doctoral thesis, Dr Honan found that the Queensland English Syllabus works as a governing mechanism, where "to govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible field of action of others" (Foucault, 1982, p 221). This governing works to construct the 'double' subject Judith Butler refers to who must, necessarily at one and the same time, be master of certain literacy practices, and submit to these practices.

Digital media and girling at an elite girls' school

In this article, I draw on Judith Butler's notion of performativity to investigate the role of digital technologies in processes of gendered subjectification (or ‘girling’) in elite girls' education. Elite girls' schooling is a site where the potential of digital technologies in mediating student‐led constructions and explorations of ‘femininity’ sits alongside school‐produced digital media in the form of promotional texts, in which young femininity is regulated by discourses of ‘girl power’. Whilst such schools are well equipped with digital resources that might be utilised towards students' interrogation of how ‘femininity’ is understood, thus politicising the girling process, school‐produced digital media inscribe a more prescriptive picture of ‘who’ an elite school‐girl can ‘be’. Lyla Girls' Grammar School (LGGS) is an elite secondary school in Melbourne, Australia. I report on research undertaken at two institutional levels of LGGS: the ‘school’ level in which digital media representations of young women are produced by the school and the ‘classroom’ level, in which media education pedagogy includes interactive web conferencing software. The use of digital technologies in media education appeared to support student‐led construction and interrogation of femininities to some extent. I argue that this kind of student‐led girling is important in the context of more prescriptive school‐level girling practices.

Exploring girl power : gender, literacy and the textual practices of young women attending an elite school

Popular discourses concerning the relationship between gender and academic literacies have suggested that boys are lacking in particular, school-based literacy competencies compared with girls. Such discourses construct “gender” according to a binary framework and they obscure the way in which literacy and textual practices operate as a site in which gendered identities are constituted and negotiated by young people in multiple sites including schooling, which academic inquiry has often emphasized. In this paper I consider the school-based textual practices of young women attending an elite school, in order to explore how these practices construct “femininities”. Feminist education researchers have shown how young women negotiate discourses of feminine passivity and heterosexuality through their reading and writing practices. Yet discourses of girlhood and femininity have undergone important transformations in times of ‘girl power’ in which young women are increasingly constructed as successful, autonomous and sexually agentic. Thus young women’s reading and writing practices may well operate as a space in which new discourses around girlhood and femininity are constituted. Throughout the paper, I utilize the notion of “performativity”, understood through the work of Judith Butler, to show how textual practices variously inscribe and negotiate discourses of gender. Thus the importance of textual work in inscribing and challenging notions of gender is asserted. I argue that critical literacy is just as important, but perhaps no more guaranteed, within elite girls’ education as it is within boys’ education.

Complicating hetero-femininities : young women, sexualities and girl power at school

This paper is concerned with expanding knowledge of how femininity/sexuality intersections are constituted in secondary schools. Existing studies have drawn upon Judith Butler’s notion of a ‘heterosexual matrix’ in order to understand how intersections of femininity/sexuality are produced in schools through normative discourses of heterosexuality and gender. Drawing on ‘after-queer’ theoretical resources from within cultural studies that focus on the deployment of notions of sexuality within constructions of intelligible citizenship, I explore how the femininity/sexuality intersection within secondary schools might be complicated, when the significance of discourses of ‘girl power’, linked with successful neoliberal citizenship, is considered. I analyse young women’s discussions of key ‘girl power’ icons in popular culture, generated through fieldwork in an elite girls’ school in Australia. Throughout the analysis I explore how understanding intersections of femininity/sexuality in secondary schools requires an analytical framework that can attend to both familiar notions of heterosexuality and gender – and their ongoing currency – as well as how notions of sexuality are mobilized in the production of successful neoliberal girl citizens. I propose that this analytical approach is useful in terms of avoiding the reinscription of sexuality identity categories in education research.

'Go Grrrl!' : constructions of femininity in the textual practices of elite girls' schooling

In this paper I consider the utility of discourses of ‘girl power’ for understanding, and complicating, the way youthful femininities are produced in schooling. The paper is concerned with expanding the possibilities for how queer theoretical resources might be utilized within studies of girls and schooling. Existing studies have drawn upon Judith Butler’s notion of a ‘heterosexual matrix’ for understanding, and attending to, the way normative discourses of heterosexuality underpin the school-based production of youthful femininities. The term ‘heterofemininities’ has been used in order to label these school-produced intersections of sex/gender/sexuality. Drawing on discourses of ‘girl power’ that gather around ‘voice’ and responsibility, I propose that the production of ‘hetero-femininities’ within educational contexts might be further explored, and thus complicated, when the significance of discourses of ‘girl power’ is considered. I analyse young women’s discussions of key ‘girl power’ icons in popular culture, generated through fieldwork in an elite girls’ school in Australia. In this analysis I explore the intersections of gender/sexuality/girl power that are produced in the young women’s textual practices.

Poetic revolutionaries: intertextuality and subversion

Poetic Revolutionaries is an exploration of the relationship between radical textual practice, social critique and subversion. From an introduction considering recent debates regarding the cultural politics of intertextuality allied to avant-garde practice, the study proceeds to an exploration of texts by a range of writers for whom formal and poetic experimentation is allied to a subversive politics: Jean Genet, Monique Wittig, Angela Carter, Kathy Acker, Kathleen Mary Fallon, Kim Scott and Brian Castro. Drawing on theories of avant-garde practice, intertextuality, parody, representation, and performance such as those of Mikhaïl Bakhtin, Julia Kristeva, Gérard Genette, Margaret A. Rose, Linda Hutcheon, Fredric Jameson, Ross Chambers and Judith Butler, these readings explore how a confluence of writing strategies – covering the structural, narratological, stylistic and scenographic – can work to boost a text’s subversive power.

A community college's performance of 'organisation' : it's a drag!

Noting the ever-increasing encroachment of discourses and practices from the private sector on public education providers, this paper argues that such organizations exist within competing sets of differences that seek to define and fix the meaning of 'education' and 'business'. We report on fieldwork conducted in an adult education college in Sydney. In the Australian context these colleges are referred to as community colleges and their history is one based in a strong liberal tradition. Utilising Judith Butler's idea of 'drag' we consider the effects of changing modes of governance in the college with specific reference to the stories told to us about it. Our discussion suggests that the organisation was caught between identifying itself with a masculinised discourse of business and a discourse of community cast as its feminised other. In navigating between these, the college was seen to perform as a 'drag king' — an organisation performing the masculine but in so doing, undoing its gendered status. This leads us to suggest that the incorporation of business and market-based discourse into the management of community education is something that is actively resisted and undermined through such forms of gendered transgression. We conclude by proposing that this organization's capacity to perform drag is a contributing factor to its overall success, and particularly in an economic climate where many not-for-profit organisations are floundering

Feminist challenges to the constraints of law : donning uncomfortable robes?

Legal judgment writing mobilises a process of story-telling, drawing on existing judicial discourses, precedents and practices to create a narrative relevant to the specific case that is articulated by the presiding judge. In the Feminist Judgments projects feminist scholars and activists have sought to challenge and reinterpret legal judgments that have disadvantaged, discriminated against or denied women’s experiences. This paper reflects on the process of writing as a feminist judge in the Australian Project, in an intimate homicide case, R v Middendorp. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler on intelligibility, iterability and the communality of violence and vulnerability, this article argues that feminist judgments necessarily require some uncomfortable compromises with unjust gendered institutions. While ‘donning the robes’ may be an uncomfortable process, a feminist re-articulation of the law’s carceral power serves to unsettle and challenge some aspects of gendered oppression, even though it cannot unsettle the operation of the institution. The article concludes that effective feminist interventions by members of the judiciary may require donning robes that are not entirely comfortable in order to persuade and advocate for change.

Levando as capacidades a sério : a perspectiva de Martha Nussbaum para o desenvolvimento das mulheres

O propósito deste trabalho é apresentar algumas das mais controversas questões da teoria das capacidades de Martha Nussbaum. Ela sugere que sua abordagem deve ser usada como base para princípios fundamentais e políticos voltados para as mulheres dos países em desenvolvimento. Desta forma, no primeiro capítulo, foram delineados os conceitos da teoria de Nussbaum. Depois de descrever a versão de Nussbaum sobre a abordagem das capacidades, o diálogo da autora com Amartya Sen foi apresentado, pois estes possuem visões particulares sobre a idéia de capacidades. No terceiro capítulo, o debate de Nussbaum com os relativistas culturais revelou o lado universal de sua teoria. A lista de capacidades de Nussbaum busca fornecer o suporte filosófico para a implementação de princípios constitucionais básicos que devem ser respeitados por todas as nações, como o mínimo que o respeito à dignidade humana requer. Por conta disso, este trabalho tentou também descobrir porque Nussbaum nega a importância do welfarismo subjetivo. No último capítulo desta dissertação, foram apresentados os debates de Nussbaum com Judith Butler, Susan Moller Okin e Alison Jaggar porque eles revelam diferentes pontos de vista e conclusões sobre a teoria das capacidades de Nussbaum.

Documentos de subjetivação: um estudo sobre o currículo em um programa de formação em gênero

O presente trabalho objetiva investigar os modos de subjetivação colocados em funcionamento no currículo do Programa de Capacitação de Multiplicadores/as em Gênero e Políticas Públicas proposto pela Federação de Órgãos para Assistência Sócio-Educacional (FASE). Adotando como referencial teórico os estudos do campo do currículo e das relações de gênero produzidos por autores como Tomaz Tadeu da Silva, Alfredo Veiga-Neto, Jorge Larrosa, Guacira Louro e Judith Butler, inspirados em grande medida na obra de Michel Foucault, a noção de currículo é assumida como prática discursiva atravessada por relações de poder-saber e envolvida em processos de subjetivação que intencionam transformar indivíduos em sujeitos privilegiando a dimensão das relações de gênero. A análise de modos de subjetivação em funcionamento no currículo do Programa de Capacitação é efetuada tendo como fonte os documentos que subsidiam suas práticas pedagógicas. A partir de uma perspectiva foucaultiana estes documentos têm seus enunciados e seus campos discursivos correlativos descritos, considerando e problematizando as relações de saber-poder em que se inscrevem. Como resultado, evidencia-se o caráter produtivo do currículo investigado ao colocar em funcionamento modos de subjetivação como investimento de estratégias de governo que sinalizam como devem ser as relações de gênero e em que sentido os indivíduos precisam transformar-se para que estas relações sejam alcançadas.

Relações de gênero em Bacuriteua (PA): imaginário do homoerotismo masculino entre coletores de caranguejo

O presente trabalho evidencia as relações de gênero no que se refere ao homoerotismo masculino na comunidade de Bacuriteua, no interior de Bragança, Amazônia. Neste complexo universo, busca-se compreender as condições de produção do discurso de negação das práticas afetivo-sexuais entre pessoas do mesmo sexo, assim como, as práticas que problematizam esse discurso. A partir da observação participante realizada junto aos moradores, método da pesquisa de natureza etnográfica, foi possível apreender aspectos singulares do grupo que norteiam as interpretações, relativos ao imaginário mítico, ao trabalho na coleta de caranguejo e às formas de sociabilidade. Dessa forma, a abordagem da pesquisa desenvolve as noções de imaginário de Gilbert Durand (2010) e de socialidade de Michel Maffesoli (2001), destacando principalmente as construções das identidades de gênero a partir de Judith Butler (1990) e suas mobilidades. Os dados apontam para a existência de tensões sociais quanto às práticas homoeróticas por parte dos membros da comunidade, assim como, a não fixidez de uma “identidade gay” e a importância das narrativas ligadas ao ser mítico Ataíde, que operam de maneira ambígua, pois ao mesmo tempo em que as mascaram trazem à tona tais relações.

Problemas de gênero: resistenências e transgressões das Marias de Rachel de Queiroz

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

A (des)construção da noção de gênero nos contos de Katherine Mansfield

Pós-graduação em Letras - FCLAS