[Commlist] Feminism and the Far-Right Symposium

*_Feminism and the Far-Right Symposium @ Goldsmiths_*

**

On Friday 6^th June 2025, Goldsmiths’ Department of Media, 
Communications and Cultural Studies (MCCS) will be hosting a one-day 
symposium about bodily autonomy, reproductive justice, gender, and the 
cultural politics of the global far-Right.

Across the globe, far-Right political actors and agitators have been 
buoyed to seats of legislative power by a sustained cultural incursion 
around issues of gender, sexuality, and the ‘traditional’ family. From 
Italy to the United States to India to Argentina to the United Kingdom, 
far-Right political agendas are galvanized by regressive attacks on 
reproductive choice and bodily autonomy. Animating and emerging from 
these attacks are a renewed set of cultural villains: pregnant people 
who seek abortions, but also feminists, bad wives and bad mothers, women 
who refuse motherhood (“childless cat ladies”), women who refuse 
heterosexual marriage (including queer women), and queer and transgender 
people of all genders. The complex backdrop for this cultural assault 
comprises abject economic inequality and an intensifying climate crisis, 
but also strategic moral panics around migration and declining birth 
rates (including racist conspiracy theories of Great Replacement), 
aggressive anti-feminist and anti-queer cultural backlashes, and the 
simmering popularity of “pro-natalist” ideology and discourse across the 
globally networked misogynistic far-Right—including among its emerging 
billionaire ringleaders in Silicon Valley.

*/Feminism and the 
Far-Right<https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/feminism-and-the-far-right-tickets-1317652978529?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl>/*is 
a one-day symposium that will draw connections between these 
developments to try and situate recent political and legislative 
assaults on reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy within their 
broader cultural and political conditions of possibility. It will bring 
together feminist scholars of media and culture whose work coalesces 
around: a) shared concern with *the misogynistic, racist and 
anti-feminist cultural logics of far-Right movements*; and b) shared 
commitment to finding *strategies to safeguard the rights and freedoms 
of women, queer and transgender people* in this moment, including 
in/through media culture as a site of resistance.

The symposium will take place at Goldsmiths, University of London on 6th 
June 2025 and is free to attend. The day will comprise three panels: on 
*abortion and reproductive choice*; on *wives, mothers and 
(anti-)feminisms*; and on *bodily autonomy, queerness, and transgender 
rights*. Speaker presentations will be 10-15 minutes each, with a large 
part of each panel session reserved for discussion among panelists and 
attendees.

*Symposium Speakers:*

Sarah Banet-Weiser (University of Pennsylvania)

Jilly Kay (Loughborough University)

Akanksha Mehta (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Sama Khosravi Ooryad (University of Gothenburg)

Abel Guerra (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Limichi Okamoto (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Azsaneé Truss (University of Pennsylvania)

Siân Norris (Journalist, Author of /Bodies Under Siege: How the 
Far-Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global/ 
<https://www.versobooks.com/products/2825-bodies-under-siege?srsltid=AfmBOootLfR3piRh7STR1E72uJU0U2YwwlE989MjVdFqRnqj3cVUhhIn>)

*/Please note that this list is still being updated. A final list of 
speakers and respondents will be confirmed and circulated in May 2025./

*Symposium Respondents:*

Catherine Rottenberg (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Jo Littler (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Lunch will be provided for all attendees and a drinks reception will 
follow the final panel.

The symposium is free to attend but places are limited. Please RSVP via 
the Eventbrite page 
<https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/feminism-and-the-far-right-tickets-1317652978529?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl>, 
and please return your ticket if you are unable to attend.

For any questions or queries about the event, please contact Kat 
Higgins ((k.higgins /at/ gold.ac.uk)) or Laurel Rogers ((lroge004 /at/ gold.ac.uk)).

This event is being hosted by Goldsmiths MCCS in collaboration with the 
Centre for Feminist Research. It is supported by funding from 
Goldsmiths' Early-Career Research Fund (ECRF).



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