Evenemang

Nätverket Åbo djurstudier (TYKE) ordnar den 23.10 en dag för unga forskare. Dagen inleds med Sanna Karhus föreläsning “What Is “Critical” About Critical Animal Studies: A Feminist Philosophical Perspective”. Föreläsningen hålls kl. 10.15-11.45, i Arcanum 355/357, Arcanumgränden 1. Föreläsningen är öppen för alla och hålls på engelska.

“What Is “Critical” About Critical Animal Studies: A Feminist Philosophical Perspective”

Critical Animal Studies (CAS) has expanded significantly in recent years. While some attention has been given to its theoretical foundations and key philosophical concepts, surprisingly little critical reflection has been offered on the concept of critique itself—a notion central to the identity and methodology of the field. In this lecture, I offer a feminist philosophical account of how we, as CAS scholars and students, might understand critique within this context.

As the field has developed, a notable shift has emerged: Feminist Animal Studies (FAS) is increasingly framed as distinct from Critical Animal Studies. I argue that one reason for this peculiar division lies in a symptomatic amnesia regarding the feminist—particularly ecofeminist—roots of CAS. By revisiting this often-overlooked genealogy, I propose a renewed understanding of critique as a form of feminist critique. By this, I mean a problematization of power relations and a philosophical method of politicization that seeks to expose domains of life typically regarded as natural or apolitical as historically contingent and thus necessarily political. These include, for example, the institutionalized and mass-scale violence against animals in food production, as well as other forms of normalized violence and oppression against both animalized and dehumanized groups.

Another dimension I will explore is critique understood as praxis: a form of theoretical and political engagement aimed at resisting and dismantling current and intersecting forms of power relations. In this sense, theoretical and political (even activist) aims in CAS—as in feminist theory—are always deeply entangled. My analysis of the concept of critique thus seeks to recover the feminist foundations of CAS and to demonstrate the continuing philosophical and political necessity of feminist critique for the field’s future development.
Dr. Sanna Karhu is a philosopher who holds the title of docent in gender studies. They currently work as a researcher and teacher at the University of Helsinki. Karhu specializes in feminist philosophy, political philosophy, queer theory, ecofeminism, and critical animal studies. Their work has appeared in journals such as Signs and Hypatia, and they are currently writing a book manuscript on ecofeminism for Polity. Karhu also serves as co-Editor-in-Chief of the Finnish gender studies journal Sukupuolentutkimus–Genusforskning.

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Anmäl dig till evenemanget och skicka din text senast den 10.10 till tykeseminar@abo.fi. Vi kommer att lägga till texterna i Moodle så att alla, allt enligt språkkunskaper, kan läsa varandras texter före seminariedagen.
Evenemanget är gratis och vi bjuder på kaffe och ett litet veganskt tilltugg till seminariedeltagarna.
Varmt välkommen!