The Masks of Black Feminism. Political agency and aesthetic strategies of a philosophy born of struggle
April 20, 2023 | 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. | Classroom 113, State University of Milan | Via Festa del Perdono 7
Abstract
To borrow Leonard Harris’ (1984) definition, I want to frame Black feminism as a “Philosophy born of struggle.” Through the voices that have marked the history of this political and thought movement, it will be a matter of composing its shared epistemological framework, namely that of an epistemology of resistance and situated point of view. Based on these premises, four fundamental concepts of Black feminism take on substance: agency, community, self-representation and self-consciousness. In an implicit dialogue with the Black philosopher Frantz Fanon (1952), the conceptual constellation thus sketched allows us to investigate the specific “mask” of Black feminism, which unlike Fanon’s turns out to be anything but white, but on the contrary, a strategic epidermalization of the tension between subjectification and subjugation. Through this lens we focus on Black feminism’s peculiar relationship to aesthetic power, that of a codified use of performativity oriented toward the becoming of the community of resistance.
Bio
Marie Moïse holds a PhD in political philosophy from the University of Padua and Toulouse II. She is also an activist who has published on racism, feminism and care relations. Her research focuses on postcolonial and gender issues from an intersectional perspective. She is a co-author of Future. Il domani narrato dalle voci di oggi (Effequ 2019), Italian co-translator of Angela Davis’ Women, Race and Class (Alegre, 2018), and Italian translator of In the Name of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism by Sara R. Farris (Rome, Alegre, 2019).
In-person with open and online access on the Teams platform.