NOISE Summer School PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 31 March 2009

NOISE stands for the Network Of Interdisciplinary Women's Studies in Europe. 
It originates in the framework of the ERASMUS programme on Higher Education, which is part of the SOCRATES programme of the European Union. The goal of the NOISE exchange programme is to allow students of the partner universities to follow courses in Women's Studies at the host university or to work on the preparation of their thesis. The students get academic recognition at the home university for the work they do abroad. Furthermore NOISE organizes staff exchanges between partner universities, organises a yearly Summer School and is working towards a European Diploma in Women's Studies.


The NOISE Summer School is an advanced training course, which offers a diversified, but coherent programme of study from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is meant for advanced MA students and PhD students and provides special and separate tuition seminars to these two groups.

 
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NOISE Summer School 2009: Moving Boundaries in Feminist Theory: Postcoloniality and Posthumanity

 
FORMULA
  • Two lectures in the morning
  • Separate MA- and PhD-specific seminars in the afternoon
  • Social programme
  • All participants are expected to fully participate in the entire programme during the two weeks
  • Students prepare before the summer school by reading and collecting material for assignments (approx. 70 hrs of work). After fulfilment of all requirements (preparation of assignments and reading, active participation and final essay of 10 - 15 pages), participants receive the NOISE Certificate for 240 hours of work, equalling 9 ECTS

CLUSTER ONE
Feminist Perspectives on Postcolonial Europe

Coordinated by Prof. Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) and Dr. Marsha Henry (London School of Economics, UK)

Postcolonial critique aims to account for structures of domination and resistance, which are present in our globalized world. In this cluster we engage with the field of postcolonial critique by mapping out some of its major contentions and paradoxes. For example, we will expand the field to minor and removed colonial legacies (i.e. Dutch, French, Italian, Nordic, Soviet, or Austro-Hungarian) and address the problems of postcolonialism as an all-encompassing buzzword, which has also turned into a fashionable commodity. The scope of this cluster is therefore to apply the tools of postcolonial feminist critique to specific historical and geo-political formations in Europe, which has remained a blind spot in postcolonial critique. We will discuss what makes Europe postcolonial and why the notion of Europe is more contested than ever, both internally (through the proliferations of ethnic, religious, regional differences) and externally (Europe expanding its boundaries but closing its borders). We will do so by exploring major debates in contemporary Europe on citizenship, migration, secularism and multiculturalism both at the level of representation and of socio-cultural formations through the analysis of different media, genres and strategies.

Confirmed teachers for this cluster are:
  • Prof. Dr. Sandra Pozanesi, Professor in Gender and Ethnicity, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
  • Dr. Marsha Henry, London School of Economics, United Kingdom


    CLUSTER TWO
    Posthuman Tropes in Feminist Theory

    Coordinated by Dr. Jami Weinstein (Utrecht University, NL) and, provisionally, Prof. Dr. Maureen McNeil (Lancaster University)

    This cluster will interrogate the effects posthuman theories have been having on feminist theories in recent years. Posthuman theories aim to overturn the Enlightenment construction of the human as autonomous, self-identical, rational, static, and distinct from animals, artifacts, and nature. Since these notions of the human are essential to what it means to be human under the humanist paradigm, if we repudiate them, the resulting “human” would be unrecognizable to us as such, hence the term “posthuman”. Posthuman theories thus seek to re-imagine the human beyond humanism and they do so in a variety of (inter-)disciplines: technoscience studies, media studies, animal studies, and queer theory, among others. In light of posthuman theoretical insights, we are compelled to revisit and call into question many key issues in feminist theory, for example: questions of sexual difference, the sex-gender distinction, notions of embodiment, and understandings of sexuality, subjectivity, and identity. We will use posthuman interpretative techniques as analytical tools to reconceptualize feminist strategies and theories. We will thus explore what it means to be a sexed/raced/ gendered/sexual body in light of the shifting, leaky, fluid, moving boundaries advocated by posthuman theories.

    Confirmed teachers for this cluster are:
  • Dr. Jami Weinstein, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
  • Prof. Dr. Maureen McNeil, Lancaster University, United Kingdom (provisionally)
  • Last Updated ( Tuesday, 31 March 2009 )