Productive Disorientations

• In Event: 52.084 - Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: 52.084-7 - Putting the Work to Work: Getting Smart, Messy, and Lost With the Work of Patti Lather

Abstract

Using the framework of disorientation from Sara Ahmed (2006), I look at the disorienting effects of Patti Lather and her work on the academy. Disorientations are full of discomfort yet productive, and this seems a particularly appropriate vehicle thinking within and against Lather’s ideas. Taking an affective approach, I prefer to consider the relations of inquiry, knowledge production, and subjectivity by envisioning her turnings toward objects and ideas to consider how these relations disrupt the well-worn lines of the academy and thought itself. What does it mean for a woman’s body as an object of movement and force to be felt and known in the academy? How are Lather’s ideas objects themselves, material-discursive entanglements, that have provoked movements of bodies, ontologies, and knowledges? The author will think across a compilation of writings, speeches, and videos to consider these questions. Beyond ideas, the author also will engage in a discussion of the material implications of a Lather’s presence and becoming on the field, on students, other scholars, and one’s self.

Author

• Sara M. Childers, Independent Scholar