The Making of Sexuality. Entangled Histories of Regulation, Intelligibility and Subjectivation

Date: June 15 to 17, 2017
Venue: Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich
Conveners: Bettina Dennerlein, Monika Gsell, Helena Rust

Éric Fassin (Paris): Sexual Nationalisms Old and New in the Age of Terror

Abstract and Details

Teresa de Lauretis (Santa Cruz, USA): Freud and the Sexual.

The Presentation will be followed by a Conversation with Frauke Berndt (UZH) on Teresa de Lauretis' current works and research interests.

Abstract and Details. (PDF, 123 KB)

In current public debates, ideological fault lines are increasingly organized around issues of gender and sexuality as prominently illustrated by the formula of the “sexual clash of civilizations”. According to this vision, “Western” sexual democracy or sexual liberation is opposed to allegedly backward, oppressive, misogynist, as well as homophobic cultures and religions – most notably Islam. We take the ongoing politicization of sexuality as a point of departure for looking more systematically into the general problem of the regulatory production and deployment of sexual matters. The workshop focuses on how, in particular settings, the domain of the sexual is produced and (re-)configured by complex regulatory regimes and frames of intelligibility. We want to explore this in an interdisciplinary perspective with a particular focus on the modern and contemporary period exploring entanglements and interconnections in the globalized world.  The workshop brings together scholars from a broad range of disciplines such as history, anthropology, cultural studies, social sciences, literary studies, psychoanalysis, and area studies.