Making Sense of the Practical Lesbian Past: Towards a Rethinking of Untimely Uses of History through the Temporality of Cultural Techniques
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Date
2024-01-10
Authors
Simon, Valérie
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
This dissertation focuses on the practice of untimely uses of lesbian history, and in particular the diverse practices of engagement with lesbian activist history, all of which aim to mobilize this activist history for the present and towards the construction of alternate futures. I approach such practices technologically by foregrounding the method and theory of ‘cultural techniques’ in a way that reframes the problem oriented by engagement with lesbian activist history. Specifically, I develop a reframing that shifts the focus from a question of representation (how to ensure the histories engaged with are more diverse?) to a question of how to engage with lesbian history in ways that guide and inspire action in the present and towards the future worlds that we deserve. I argue that to answer the latter question what is needed is attention to the practices (and in particular the technologies) we find in archives and to evaluate what these practices might do in the present through an understanding of these practices’ temporality, historicity and the ethico-political questions they raise.
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Keywords
Cultural Techniques, Lesbian Archives and Histories, Practices, Temporality