The category of aesthetic is up for deconstruction. Evolving varied forms of poetics means challe... more The category of aesthetic is up for deconstruction. Evolving varied forms of poetics means challenging the politics of anti-aesthetic by remaking its theoretical base and changing the terms of the argument. To give a new content to the concept of aesthetic means broadening the scope of what we think as art. In freeing art from the traditional bondage, we come to a point that coerces us to think about the arena of radical aesthetics. This paper strives to look at the aesthetics of political dissent. I would particularly look at feminist erotic/performative movements and their ways of reclaiming the public space to connote how radical aesthetic is not confined to the traditional modes of art. The embodied ways of coming together including forms of solidarity, imply a new understanding of the public space of appearance which is essential to politics. Bodies suffering under conditions of precarity still persist and resist, and that mobilization brings out this dual dimension of corporeal life. Dissent in the streets is art. Performativity or reclaiming a name is art. What kind of radical practice does this change amount to? Where does it end? This paper would attempt to problematize these questions and trace the geography of performativity.
If I take the liberty to call this age, the age of gender studies, then it is important ... more If I take the liberty to call this age, the age of gender studies, then it is important to note how the neoliberal popular culture with its privatizing and corporatizing motto is reaping the benefits out of this scenario. This paper will attempt to look how certain popular advertisements in India represent the idea and lived realities of queer lives that are born out of this pop feminism( by this term, I mean media circulated, more mainstream, flawed idea of feminism and queer studies). So, when a commercial of Ebay.in showcases a guy proposing his boyfriend or Anouk’s ad portrays an anxious lesbian couple because the validity of their relationship will be sanctioned by the parents, it is all about normativity that tries to bind queer politics by the heterosexual ideals. These advertisements are appropriating queer politics, propagating homonormativity through culmination in marriages and moreover distorting the agendas of queer movements in mainstream media. They are essentially directed towards an evergrowing market—marriage market, beauty market and so on. Yes, an ad is supposed to sell a product, but I am yet to see a queer person appear in a condom ad which is absolutely necessary for the awareness regarding sexual health. This paper will reflect on the undoing of Queer politics in the era of neoliberalism, it will focus on the dismantling of collective politics and the privatization of the political today. These popular commercials (I will be mainly focusing on the advertisements of Jabong, Ebay, Anouk, U.N video, traffic rules awareness programme etc.) hijack queer politics and maneuver it towards privatized sector of the market and in a way that nullifies the struggle against normativity. Keywords: neoliberal, homonormativity, political, advertisement, popular
The body is an over-determined site of power for Foucault; its physiology and morphology shaped b... more The body is an over-determined site of power for Foucault; its physiology and morphology shaped by histories and practices of containment and control. Punishment and all implications of disciplinary actions are not just means of reducing crime but a way of practising perpetual state surveillance over all its members. In order to achieve this aim, the prison paradoxically produces delinquency ----'An enclosed, separate and useful illegality'. This paper strives to reflect on how this production of delinquency works on women deemed criminal by imposing normalising standards of behaviour and mechanism of social control. Apart from few instances of discussion on female penal labour, there is no remarkable acknowledgement by Foucault on the extent to which gender determines the techniques and degrees of discipline exerted on the body. The attempt would be to analyze the disciplinary practices that engender 'Docile bodies' of women (rendered more docile than bodies of men ) starting from the Foucauldian theoretical framework in Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality. It is important to note that sexual violence (Often, custodial rape) becomes a way of disciplining the 'deviant' female body and for the discussion I would like to refer to short stories by Mahasweta Devi ( Draupadi and Behind the Bodice: Choli ke Pichhe),case history of Soni Sori and the political struggle against AFSPA (questionable responses that it drew /Metaphorical rape?) of Irom Sharmila.
The androcentrism embedded in the culture of reason is a welltrodden path. Despite the espoused i... more The androcentrism embedded in the culture of reason is a welltrodden path. Despite the espoused ideal of egalitarianism, among most of the enlightenment thinkers there is a prevalence of opinion to relegate women to the domestic sphere.Enlightenment proposed the 'Way Out' from the 'Immaturity'-from someone's authority,prejudice and superstitions with the aid of reason.Women embodying sensibility, unreason and passion lay at the outskirts of this realm of reason.Sensibility in woman was seen to be a dangerous force bearing the potential of firing utopian imagination or derail the purpose of the age of reason. Sensibility was the 'Untaught Goodness' which has little need for language and thereby distancing women from the project of knowledge.
The category of aesthetic is up for deconstruction. Evolving varied forms of poetics means challe... more The category of aesthetic is up for deconstruction. Evolving varied forms of poetics means challenging the politics of anti-aesthetic by remaking its theoretical base and changing the terms of the argument. To give a new content to the concept of aesthetic means broadening the scope of what we think as art. In freeing art from the traditional bondage, we come to a point that coerces us to think about the arena of radical aesthetics. This paper strives to look at the aesthetics of political dissent. I would particularly look at feminist erotic/performative movements and their ways of reclaiming the public space to connote how radical aesthetic is not confined to the traditional modes of art. The embodied ways of coming together including forms of solidarity, imply a new understanding of the public space of appearance which is essential to politics. Bodies suffering under conditions of precarity still persist and resist, and that mobilization brings out this dual dimension of corporeal life. Dissent in the streets is art. Performativity or reclaiming a name is art. What kind of radical practice does this change amount to? Where does it end? This paper would attempt to problematize these questions and trace the geography of performativity.
If I take the liberty to call this age, the age of gender studies, then it is important ... more If I take the liberty to call this age, the age of gender studies, then it is important to note how the neoliberal popular culture with its privatizing and corporatizing motto is reaping the benefits out of this scenario. This paper will attempt to look how certain popular advertisements in India represent the idea and lived realities of queer lives that are born out of this pop feminism( by this term, I mean media circulated, more mainstream, flawed idea of feminism and queer studies). So, when a commercial of Ebay.in showcases a guy proposing his boyfriend or Anouk’s ad portrays an anxious lesbian couple because the validity of their relationship will be sanctioned by the parents, it is all about normativity that tries to bind queer politics by the heterosexual ideals. These advertisements are appropriating queer politics, propagating homonormativity through culmination in marriages and moreover distorting the agendas of queer movements in mainstream media. They are essentially directed towards an evergrowing market—marriage market, beauty market and so on. Yes, an ad is supposed to sell a product, but I am yet to see a queer person appear in a condom ad which is absolutely necessary for the awareness regarding sexual health. This paper will reflect on the undoing of Queer politics in the era of neoliberalism, it will focus on the dismantling of collective politics and the privatization of the political today. These popular commercials (I will be mainly focusing on the advertisements of Jabong, Ebay, Anouk, U.N video, traffic rules awareness programme etc.) hijack queer politics and maneuver it towards privatized sector of the market and in a way that nullifies the struggle against normativity. Keywords: neoliberal, homonormativity, political, advertisement, popular
The body is an over-determined site of power for Foucault; its physiology and morphology shaped b... more The body is an over-determined site of power for Foucault; its physiology and morphology shaped by histories and practices of containment and control. Punishment and all implications of disciplinary actions are not just means of reducing crime but a way of practising perpetual state surveillance over all its members. In order to achieve this aim, the prison paradoxically produces delinquency ----'An enclosed, separate and useful illegality'. This paper strives to reflect on how this production of delinquency works on women deemed criminal by imposing normalising standards of behaviour and mechanism of social control. Apart from few instances of discussion on female penal labour, there is no remarkable acknowledgement by Foucault on the extent to which gender determines the techniques and degrees of discipline exerted on the body. The attempt would be to analyze the disciplinary practices that engender 'Docile bodies' of women (rendered more docile than bodies of men ) starting from the Foucauldian theoretical framework in Discipline and Punish and History of Sexuality. It is important to note that sexual violence (Often, custodial rape) becomes a way of disciplining the 'deviant' female body and for the discussion I would like to refer to short stories by Mahasweta Devi ( Draupadi and Behind the Bodice: Choli ke Pichhe),case history of Soni Sori and the political struggle against AFSPA (questionable responses that it drew /Metaphorical rape?) of Irom Sharmila.
The androcentrism embedded in the culture of reason is a welltrodden path. Despite the espoused i... more The androcentrism embedded in the culture of reason is a welltrodden path. Despite the espoused ideal of egalitarianism, among most of the enlightenment thinkers there is a prevalence of opinion to relegate women to the domestic sphere.Enlightenment proposed the 'Way Out' from the 'Immaturity'-from someone's authority,prejudice and superstitions with the aid of reason.Women embodying sensibility, unreason and passion lay at the outskirts of this realm of reason.Sensibility in woman was seen to be a dangerous force bearing the potential of firing utopian imagination or derail the purpose of the age of reason. Sensibility was the 'Untaught Goodness' which has little need for language and thereby distancing women from the project of knowledge.
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Papers by Saheli Biswas
Keywords: neoliberal, homonormativity, political, advertisement, popular
Keywords: neoliberal, homonormativity, political, advertisement, popular