| Student Conference
Student Conference

Pop Hero and Action Princess - Negotiating Gender in Popular Culture

January 12 - 13, 2018 | English Department WWU Münster
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"Do Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, or Miley Cyrus contribute to feminist* discourses? Are Sherlock and Dr. Watson more than friends? And can Thor be a woman?"

This conference aims to address the role of gender in popular culture, how it is represented and read. The discussion will focus on the political power of such representations and their impact on cultural practices; their critical and subversive potential. In order to do so, we would like to engage with various aspects of popular culture and look forward to discussing gender (re-)presentations and performances in a range of different media, including Film, Music, TV, Literature, Comic, Social Media, and other online media.

To the conference website

Münster Lecture 2018

Theory and Practice in Feminism* Today?

Jan. 12, 2018 I 7pm I Lecture Hall JO1 (Johannisstr. 4)

The discussion is part of the student conference Pop Hero and Action Princess: Negotiating Gender in Popular Culture, which is organized by doctoral students of GS PoL, among others

The international Women's March in January and the #MeToo debate show it clearly: Feminism is booming. But how do these grassroots movements relate to academic practice? What's up with Alice Schwarzer's recent allegations that gender studies a la Judith Butler is too abstract and unworldly?

This year's Münster Lectures deal with the relationship between feminist theory and activism. To this end, the organizers invited cultural theorist Laina Dawes from the Department of Music at Columbia University (USA) and Sonia Eismann, co-founder, co-publisher and editor-in-chief of Missy Magazine: Magazin für Pop, Politik und Feminismus (Berlin, Germany).

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Conference Program

Friday, January 12, 2018

14:00 – 14:30
Conference Registration

14:30 – 15:00
Conference Opening

15:00 – 16:30
Panel I: Gender on the TV Screen – Reading Queer Television

Valentina López Liendo (Heidelberg)
“Queer Latinas: Familia, Religion, Quinces and Coming Out”

Carolin Rolf (Hagen)
“Baiting the Fandom That Feeds You”

Kilian Schmidt (Dortmund)
“‘Sunny Is not a Woman!’- Transgender Representation in Germany’s Longest Running Soap Opera: Between Stabilizing Tropes and Queering the Lindenstraße”

16:30 – 17:00
Coffee Break

17:00 – 18:30
Panel II: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Gender

Julia Ditter (Freiburg)
“’Pussy Grabs Back’: Adapting The Handmaid’s Tale for the 21st Century”

Delia Kaltenbach (Köln)
“’Reader, I married him’ – Negotiating Feminist Protagonists, Happy Endings, and Romance”

Alyssa Steiner (Basel)
“The Afterlives of the Knights of the Roundtable: How Hollywood (Mis)Uses Arthurian Heroes to Construct Hegemonic Masculinity

18:30 – 19:00
Coffee Break

19:00 – 20:30
Keynote Lecture: “Theory and Practice in Feminism*? – On the Co-Dependency of Feminist* Theory and Feminist* Activism”

Sonja Eismann (Missy Magazine)

Laina Dawes (Columbia University, New York City)

Saturday, January 13, 2018

09:30 – 11:00
Panel III: Countering Stereotypes, Challenging Discourses

Hedwig Lieback (Leipzig)
“Mocking the Discourse and Spreading It – The ‘Did You just Assume My Gender?’ Meme” and Its Double Function”

Somaye Rezaie (Wien)
“‘I’ll Tell You My Sins, so You Can Sharpen Your Knife’ – Hozier’s ‘Take Me to Church’ and the Foucaudian Ritual of Confession and Reverse Discourse”

Anna Köhler (Aachen)
“Wicked Women: Witches on Page and Screen from Macbeth to the Present”

11:00 – 11:30
Coffee Break

11:30 – 13:00
Panel IV: Performing Gender – Identity and Music Culture

Luis Groitl (Regensburg)
“‘Okay, Ladies, Now Let’s Get in Formation’: Agency, Black Female Identity, and Performance in Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’”

Svea Türlings (Münster)
“Queer Performances and Gender Transgression in the Case of David Bowie”

Janik Wetzel (Potsdam)
“Drag Queen of Coney Island – Lana DelRey and Heteronormativity

13:00 – 14:30
Lunch Break

14:30 – 16:00
Panel V: Representing the Female Body

Julia Schneider (Paderborn)
“Challenging ‘Branded’ Bodies: Intersectional Feminism in Cecilia Ahern’s Flawed Series”

Sina Hellwing (Bochum)
“The Cyborg and the Prosthetic – Female Amputees on Screen”

Nic Doty (Freiburg)
“Holy Female, Batman: The Girl Wonder and the Visual Representation of the Beaten and Bloodied Female Body”

16:00 – 16:15
Coffee Break

16.15 – 17.45
Panel VI: New Media – New Potential?

Anne Korfmacher (Freiburg)
“‘When You Get What You Want, You Feel Great!’ – Gender Negotiation in My Dad Wrote a Porno Podcast”

Fabian Schwarz (Halle-Wittenberg)
“The Design of Masculinity and Femininity in Video Games”

Sabrina Pischer (Bonn)
“Of Feminazis and Social Justice Warriors: Identity Politics and Feminist Activism Represented in American Alt-Right Meme Culture”

17:45 – 18:15
Closing Remarks: Popular Culture and Its Potential for Feminism*