Research and Education

Research

[See my academic.edu page for papers, talks, and CV.  (link below)]

From Feb. 2012 I will begin a new position, Lecturer in Literature, Art, Media/Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, Maastricht University and join as research fellow the Centre for Gender and Diversity.

Dissertation Project (Defended June 2011)

 

"Shimmering Images: On Transgender Embodiment and Cinematic Aesthetics"

 

In this study, I propose that transgender embodiment and cinematic images can be understood as related on the basis of their shimmering quality. I mobilize the notion of “shimmering” to move back and forth between, on the one hand, trans corporeality and, on the other, the medium of cinema, as well as between the related disciplines of transgender studies and cinema studies. The interdisciplinarity of the project is inspired by the shimmering visual status of specific cinematic images that emphasize movement within the frameorbetween frames; hence, my project explores how this visuality might relate to particular gender states-of-becoming. 

Transgender embodiments challenge sex and gender alignment, which one cansupposedly identify through visual evidence. Each chapter addresses the difficulty in seeing and knowing the experiences that waver in a largely uncharted “transitioning” state by outlining an alternative theoretical paradigm. I draw on Michel Foucault, Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Lacan, and feminist theories such as from Kaja Silverman, Laura Mulvey, Linda Williams, as well as transgender theories from Sandy Stone and Susan Stryker, amongst others. In this way, the study seeks to create analytical and theoretical leeway for transitionally gendered embodiments located in the field of image-making. It does so through a heuristic dialogue between a set of relevant concepts and a select corpus of mainstream and alternative erotic film and video. Although I try to trace a specific modality of trans subjectivity, shimmering images also form and inform a contested field of knowability that bears on subjectivity more broadly.

 

My interests are in embodiment, somatechnics, feminist film theory, critical theory, visual culture, transgender studies, queer theory and (post-)pornography.

 

Supervisors:

Prof. dr. Maaike Bleeker (UU) and  Dr. Murat Aydemir (UvA) 

Murat Aydemir

Maaike Bleeker

My page at Academia.edu

Education

 

University of Amsterdam, The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2006-2011, ASCA fellowship for PhD candidacy.

 

University of Leeds, Leeds, England 2003-2004, Masters of Arts in Cultural Studies with distinction.

 

The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, USA (2000-2003), Bachelor of Arts.

ASCA

Association Memberships

Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)

Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA)

Somatechnics Research Centre Associate, Macquarie University , Sydney , Australia

Association for Cultural Studies (ACS)

European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS)

European Association for Gender Research, Education and Documentation (ATGENDER)