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Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing Seminar Series

Organisers: Dr Jasmine D Cooper (Cambridge) & Dr Katie Pleming (Edinburgh)

‘Who cares?’ speaks to a paradox at the heart of ethical and political discourses of care in the contemporary. It is an interrogation of who performs care, an examination of the intersections of capital, care, and exploitation, a making visible of those upon whom the burden of care falls. Yet it also captures feelings of apathy - both individual and institutional - which seem to mark the contemporary. While the institutional refusal to care results in forms of systemic violence, the individual and collective turn away from care is more complex, bound up with questions of privilege, agency, and resistance. While a politics of care may align with progressive politics, narratives of care are easily appropriated or inverted: co-opted by reactionary, nationalist political groups. As such, care orbits a crucial negotiation between self and other, between self-centredness and other-centeredness. It is linked to vulnerability and forms of precarity. Ultimately, care speaks to relationality: how we relate to others, to ourselves, to the Earth, and to non-human lifeforms. 

Seminar Programme
We approach the discussion of care and the issues it raises across three broad topics:

Session 1: Care, (Geo)politics, and the Social
Date: 7th March 2022 
Time: 16:00 GMT
Speakers: Sophie Lewis (Brooklyn Institute for Social Research; Visiting Scholar, GSWS Penn) and Ally Day (University of Toledo)

Session 2: Care and the Non-Human 
Date: 21st March 2022
Time: 16:00 GMT
Speakers: Jami Weinstein (Uppsala University) and Iggy Cortez (Vanderbilt University)

Session 3: Care and Neoliberalism 
Date: 28th March 2022 
Time: 16:00 GMT
Speakers: Lisa Downing (University of Birmingham), Alice Blackhurst (St John’s College, Cambridge) and Emma Dowling (University of Vienna)


All are welcome to attend these free online seminars. You will need to register in advance to receive the online joining link. To attend the first session starting at 16:00 GMT on Monday 7 March Please click on the BOOK NOW button below.


Download guidance on participating in an online event (pdf)