Interrogating the Discourse of Liberation: Critical Feminist and Queer Perspectives for Ukraine

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The panel seeks to explore how the location of Ukraine on the fringes of two empires, namely the Russian Federation and the West, entails specific consequences for women, feminist, LGBT+ and queer communities, and broader society. While the Russian Federation remains a colonial empire like that which dominated in the era of colonialism, the concept of empire with respect to the West refers to a new supra-national form of sovereignty whose power is exercised through a “network” of dominant nation-states, supranational institutions and major capitalist corporations (Hardt & Negri, 2000). Focusing on the Ukrainian feminist, LGBT+, and queer discourses, activist, artist, literary and academic alike, the panel aims to examine the dynamics of knowledge and cultural production in/about Ukraine with respect to gender and sexuality. Drawing on a variety of anticolonial frameworks, we ask: How do the Euro-oriented aspirations of the Ukrainian government, the ultra-conservative turn in Russia, Hungary and other countries, and the dominating perception of the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine as a “civilizational clash” affect gender and sexual politics in Ukraine? What are the potential critical avenues away from the deadly binarism reinforced by the war? What would liberation of peripheries mean when all the possible options are defined by imperial powers? And what kinds of solidarities are possible in times of war(s)?

Sub Unit

• Gender/LGBTQ Studies

Chair

• Maria Mayerchyk, National Academy of Sciences (Ukraine)

Papers

• Militarization and Necropolitics at the Buffer Periphery of Europe: Thinking of Peace Amidst War - Maria Mayerchyk, National Academy of Sciences (Ukraine)

• The Role of Culture in Revolution and War - Jessica Zychowicz, U.S. Fulbright Program / Institute of International Education (Ukraine)

• Ambivalent Feminism and Ukrainian Pop in Emergency Time: Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil Go to Eurovision - Maria Sonevytsky, Bard College; Galina Yarmanova, Bard College Berlin (Germany)

• Writing the Queer-Feminist Diasporic Re-existance: Researching Non-canonic Literary Texts by Ukrainian Migrants - Masha Beketova, Humboldt U Berlin (Germany)

Discussant

• Olga Plakhotnik, U of Greifswald (Germany)