Summer semester 2022 Intersectionality: Sociology between Theory and Practice • University of Passau

Intersectionality: Sociology between Theory and Practice

Prof. Dr. Karin Stögner, Lehrstuhl für Soziologie

Intersectionality as a concept for analysing social inequality focuses on the multidimensionality of social processes of domination and shows that discrimination and inequality of opportunity along the lines of class, gender/sexuality, ethnicity/nationality are to be understood as intertwined. Influenced by Black Feminism, intersectionality was not only an analytical concept but also a political programme from the beginning. Social movements that are intersectional in their self-understanding fight for social, political and economic recognition of structurally marginalised groups. In the process, tensions repeatedly arise both in the formation of theory and in political practice. This field of tension between ideology critique and identity politics makes intersectionality a dynamic and contested field and raises contemporary questions and problems, which the lectures in this interdisciplinary lecture series address.

Except for the last lecture (19 July), all lectures are held in German. For more information on the lectures, see the German version of the page.

The lecture will take place on Tuesdays from 6 to 7:30 pm in the room WIWI HS 5 (and online via ZOOM).

Karin Stögner, Universität Passau

Ilse Lenz, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Ulrike Marz, Universität Rostock

Eunike Piwoni, Universität Passau

Christine Achinger, University of Warwick

Petra Klug, Universität Bremen

Ina Kerner, Universität Koblenz

Sama Maani

Lale Akgün

Andrea Maihofer, Universität Basel

Sebastian Winter, Universität Passau

The aim of this lecture is to present some issues related to intersectionality and identity debates in Brazil. We will see them against the background of their historical development, from the 1970s onwards, and how they became a heated topic in Brazilian politics nowadays. To understand these debates, that is, the uses (and abuses) of gender, race, and, more recently, intersectionality, we will pursue two analytical levels: how the terms develop and are challenged both in the broader public discourse and in academic and intellectual venues. We will disentangle the traps and potentialities of contested issues that are at the heart of many controversies which are not exclusive to Brazil, but that here acquire particular traits and implications.

Ana Claudia Lopes, PhD, is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil) and Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Philosophy at the University of São Paulo (Brazil). She works on ethics and political philosophy, critical theory, gender and feminism. She has earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Campinas in 2019 with a dissertation on the relationship between practical philosophy and Critical Theory in the work of Seyla Benhabib. She was a visiting researcher at the Cluster of Excellence "The Formation of Normative Orders" at the Goethe University (Germany) (2014/2018). She also works as a translator, being one of the translators of Situating the Self (Seyla Benhabib, 1992) and Justice Interruptus (Nancy Fraser, 1996) to Brazilian Portuguese. She contributed a chapter to the recently published Kritische Theorie und Feminismus, edited by Karin Stögner and Alexandra Colligs.