SWIP.NL organizes a hybrid lecture by Jana Cattien (Political and Social Philosophy, University of Amsterdam)

Date: Feb. 17, 2023
Time: 12.00-13.30 hrs.
Venue: Vrije Universiteit, NU-building, room NU 02A-65
Zoom link:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://vu-live.zoom.us/j/98475640855?pwd=Sk1xWWNmMmJsMXExck9Eb0QvRHJYQT09
Meeting ID: 984 7564 0855
Passcode: 372352

Abstract:

“Getting Something Off your Chest”: Feminist Consciousness-Raising, Therapy & Catharsis
In 1973, when Kathie Sarachild, co-founder of the first feminist consciousness-raising (FCR) groups, spoke to attendees of a feminist conference in New York City, she was adamant to stress that the purpose of FCR was “not therapy, was not to give someone a chance to get something off her chest”. With this, she set up a sharp opposition between therapy, understood as a process of ‘offloading’ or ‘discharging’ negative emotions, and radical feminist emancipation. My aim in this paper is to overcome this false dichotomy between therapy as ‘catharsis’ on the one hand, and emancipatory political projects on the other. In order to do this, I will formulate a notion of catharsis that can make sense of the ‘therapeutic’ effects of feminist consciousness-raising without thereby pitting narratives of individual healing against projects of collective political emancipation.

Bio:
Jana Cattien is Assistant Professor in Political and Social Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Her areas of specialization are feminist philosophy, gender theory, critical race and postcolonial theory. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Lincoln, on the ‘Suicide in/as Politics’ project. She holds a PhD from SOAS, University of London (funded through a SOAS Research Studentship), an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Durham.

You are welcome to attend, in person or online!