Förkonferens G22

Nina Lykke
 

"Vibrant Death. A Posthuman Phenomenology of Mourning"

Book Presentation

PERFORMANCE LECTURE WITH POETRY READING

In this performance lecture based on my book "Vibrant Death. A Posthuman Phenomenology of Mourning" I will offer poetic, visual and philosophical snapshots from my journey through mourning, as it is contemplated in Vibrant Death. I will share my thoughts on queer mourning, and how it brought me to consider an ecological ethics of planetary kinship and companionship.

Bringing together queerfeminism, Deleuzian philosophy, new-materialism, posthumanism, decolonial thought, poetry, and autobiographical stories, Vibrant Death explores the speaking position of a mourning, queerfeminine ”I”. The book is a queer femme’s lamentation of her* lesbian, queermasculine life partner’s cancerdeath. It is also a philosophical contemplation of new eco-spiritual sensibilities.

My cripqueering approach to normative biopolitical agendas about (un)healthy grieving, which implies a dwelling in mourning instead of trying to overcome it, took me on a journey into poetry writing, philosophical contemplations, and eco-spiritual practices.

I reflect on my enactment of processes of co-becoming with the phenomenal and material traces of my beloved’s  body, and the new assemblages with which it has merged through death’s material metamorphoses: that is, becoming-ashes through cremation and, when ashes were scattered over a seabed, built by fossilized diatoms (micro-algae), becoming-mixed-with-algae-sand.

Nina Lykke is Professor Emerita of Gender Studies at Linköping University, Sweden, and Adjunct Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is also a poet and writer, and has recently co-founded an international network for Queer Death Studies. Her current research focuses on feminist theory; queering of death, and mourning in posthuman, queerfeminist, new materialist, decolonial and eco-critical perspectives; autophenomenography; and poetic writing.

She has recently published in journals such as Australian Feminist Studies; NORA; Catalyst. Feminism, Theory, Technoscience; Environmental Humanities; Social Identitiee; Kerb Journal; and Lambda Nordica. She is also the author of numerous books such as Cosmodolphins (2000),  Feminist Studies (2010), and Vibrant Death. A Posthuman Phenomenology of Mourning (2022). Website: www.ninalykke.net