Feminist Revolutions Out of Reach

Dr. Yanbing Er - Department of English Language & Literature, National University of Singapore (https://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/elley/)

Abstract

How might a feminist revolution be theorized to account for its dissonant coordinates of spatial and temporal struggle? In response to this question, this talk develops what I call a feminist revolution out of reach: a concept that registers the transnational and transtemporal geometries intrinsic to a feminist revolution, which are destined to remain perpetually beyond knowable grasp. I show how this concept takes shape in an analysis of Ruth Ozeki’s 2013 novel A Tale for the Time Being, through which a revolutionary modality characterized by its multiple vanishing points is revealed. To this end, this talk articulates another way of reading and representing a feminist revolution, written both into and out of existence by literary strategies, and fundamentally beyond reach in its true eventfulness.

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Biography

Yanbing Er is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore. Working at the intersections of feminist theory, affect studies, and twentieth and twenty-first century literature and culture, she is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Feminism Enchanted.

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Zoom Details

Zoom link: https://hku.zoom.us/j/98778746417?pwd=a2NBR2FHRGg4dis4dkNlZ1hjWlZyZz09

Meeting ID: 987 7874 6417
Password: 558532

Live broadcast will be available in Room CRT-7.45, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU.