GEXcel Gender Talks Series
Liu Xin, universitetslektor i Genusvetenskap vid Karlstads universitet.
"The Intimacy truth of Covid-19 pandemic"
The COVID-19 pandemic has been unfolding in the age of post-truth. Named as the 2016’s word of the year by the Oxford Dictionaries, post-truth is defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (Mcintyre 2018, 5).
The focus of this presentation is not on how and why fake news circulates but on the enduring, if not intensified, feeling of and for truth in the face of uncertainties and competing narratives of the pandemic. As I will show, this feeling of and for truth takes a specific affective expression, which I call sentimental intimacy.
Zooming in on the discussions about the machines at the hospital construction site in Wuhan, I argue that the sentimental intimacy of truth concerns an irreducible attachment to an imagined inside whose close/d-ness undergoes constant negotiation.
Biography
Liu Xin (she/her) is a senior lecturer at the Center for Gender Studies, Karlstad University. She has published articles in journals such as Feminist Review, Australian Feminist Studies, Journal of Environmental Media, Parallax, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture, Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, Media Theory Journal, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equality.
Her recent research projects are located in the intersection of feminist theory, environmental humanities, critical race studies, science and technology studies, social theory and digital media research. She is currently co-editing the book Digital Politics, Digital Histories and Digital Futures, and the special issue “Sexualities and Critiques of Capital” of the journal Kvinder, Køn & Forskning.
This GEXcel seminar will take place on Zoom. If you wish to attend please contact Jennie Särnmark at jennie.sarnmark@kau.se. Please remember to register the latest by March 14th! The link will then be sent out on March 15th.