Helen Hester
@HelenHester
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Xenofeminist. Haircut enthusiast. Curator @femfutprog . Tweeting in a personal capacity.
London
Joined May 2011
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We've been working really hard on this for a very long time - so if it's dog shit, please don't tell us.
Ok, mandatory book promotion thread since it's out today with
@VersoBooks
. This book has been a long-time coming, initially proposed in 2015 or so, but then Helen and I had three kids and the book took a backseat
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This is a highly rigorous, carefully evidenced, and extremely convincing analysis of technology and the future of work. I’d also say (at the risk of overstepping) that it’s one of my favourite post-work texts of recent years.
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From 2017 to 2019. Still in service, and just about fits over the baby bump!
I'm voting for Labour because a better world is possible.
#wantchangevotelabour
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Looking forward to reading ‘Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power’ by
@lolaolufemi_
, out next month from
@PlutoPress
. I’m excited on the basis of the contents page alone!!
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My article 'Anti-Work Architecture: Domestic Labour, Speculative Design, and Automated Plenty' is out today. (Open access.)
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Sophie Lewis's forthcoming book 'Abolish the Family' is an absolute riot. Pre-order it from Verso!
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'To be wealthy is to be able to engage the question of what to do on Monday morning, rather than be forced to go to work in order to survive’ - Martin Hägglund
Hope you had a great weekend! 😊
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Funded PhDs at the University of West London! Deadline June 30. If you're interested in researching gender, technology, work, feminist political economy, digital culture, etc, get in touch. We have some amazing doctoral students here.
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'Xenofeminism' reviewed in Feminist Media Studies:
'We can learn from (the 2nd wave's) mistakes and exclusions without the need for any wholesale repudiation, or self-satisfied understanding of ourselves as so much more enlightened & sophisticated'.
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Solidarity w/ colleagues
@LivUni
in the face of job losses & 100% pay deductions justified on the basis of cost-saving as part of "Project Shape". As this video shows, staff were explicitly assured that the project wasn't about costs & would not jeopardise jobs. Riiight...
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'Sexual and gender freedom necessarily means that how people choose to organize their romantic lives, kinship networks and domestic arrangements should have no consequence for people's standard of living and material well being... 1/2
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Going to rebrand abstract reasoning as cognitive astral projection, in the hopes of appealing to witchy affect feminists.
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Can’t wait to get stuck into this, by the great
@littler_jo
and (equally excellent) colleagues. Congratulations to all involved!
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My article, 'Sapience + Care: Reason and Responsibility in Posthuman Politics', has just been published in Angelaki.
50 free copies available here:
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'...a meticulously researched and agilely argued plea for the reduction of domestic labor'
After Work in the Washington Post (!):
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Blurbing the forthcoming book by Precarity Lab for
@GoldsmithsPress
, and very struck by this line: 'If technological prosthesis provides access to desired futures for people across bodily and mental difference, let it be a future of accessible play, not merely accessible work.'
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Masses of love & solidarity to
@Women_Strike
today. This time last year, I was 6 months pregnant & blockading the Dept of Health & Social Care. This year, I'm struggling with ongoing post-natal anxiety & have contributed nothing... Here's to next year! xx
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Really excited to be leading this new initiative from
@Autonomy
. We have some wonderful stuff lined up for the launch on March 8th, and some really important work coming out over the coming weeks and months. Keep an eye on
@femfutprog
for updates!
🚀🚀A heads up for next week: we're launching our Feminist Futures Programme!
Led by
@HelenHester
, the FFP will:
Disseminate new and established feminist voices.
Collaborate with researchers from different disciplines.
Produce new research and policy.
FOLLOW:
@femfutprog
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Massive thanks to
@socialrepro
for this thoughtful & sustained engagement w/ the xenofeminist manifesto. As with
@reproutopia
's recent review essay, I feel this is going to be a v. useful tool to think w/ over the coming months.
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What better time to crack this open than on the Friday of a 4-day week? 'A radical & pragmatic proposal for tackling the twin crises of work & care in contemporary capitalism', by 2 people I'm fortunate enough to work closely with. Congratulations
@autonomous_coys
&
@w_stronge
!
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My first book of 2019 is
@reproutopia
's 'Full Surrogacy Now' and damn... it's going to be a hard one to beat. 😍 Do yourselves a favour and preorder now.
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An election? At Christmas? When I’m 5 months pregnant? After
@n_srnck
& I promised to deliver our book manuscript by the end of the year? Bring it on... Just hope my Labour sweatshirt still fits over the bump.
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Really great collection of interviews.
@littler_jo
is very good at this! A pleasure to read and easy to dip in and out of. Would potentially make a lovely gift for the leftist motherer in your life.
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Tomorrow evening, I'll be introducing Lynn Hershman Leeson's 2002 sci fi film 'Teknolust' at Mimosa House:
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Gender freedom, therefore, relies on the widespread accessibility of means of survival and reproduction that do not rely on the family, wage labour, or the state.'
@genderhorizon
, 2/2
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I wrote about gender and working time reduction for
@ips_journal
, in the context of the coronavirus crisis and IG Metall's recent call for a four-day week.
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Huge congratulations to
@CallumCant1
, Dr Callum Cant PhD, who (predictably enough) produced an extraordinary thesis and absolutely smashed his viva this afternoon.
And massive thanks to
@kbriken
and
@DennisCMRS
for such a thorough and engaging discussion of the work.
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This weekend, I will be reading proofs of
@AmeliaHorgan
's 'Lost in Work' - and I could not be more stoked about it.
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Delighted to have been invited to collaborate with
@saberfuturo
(a foundation aiming to explore technology and the governance of knowledge from a Global South perspective). Very happy to be able to give this interview with Paula in support of their work:
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Very much enjoyed this essay. Will be of interest to many people, I think, but particularly to those of us with critical interests in universalism, solidarity, xeno-hospitality, etc. 'Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference'.
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Beautiful new book, including my essay 'Gender is a Workplace Technology' and contributions by lots of excellent people. Many thanks to
@SharonKivland
for inviting me to be a part of it. Please support the press by buying a copy.
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@henry_DC98
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it! It may not be a version of XF that all members would recognise/ subscribe to, but it certainly wouldn't exist without the manifesto. 😊 Thank you for reading.
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Have received advance copies of some *very* exciting new books about work recently, written by people I very much admire. This is one of them. Congratulations
@DrHeatherBerg
!
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'It’s always been problematic to talk about the liberation of women because that presupposes that we know what women are. [...] It’s not a question of liberation so much as a question of evolution – or engineering.' Sadie Plant, 1996
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Delighted to see that, as of today, the book is available in Italian! Massive thanks to
@neroeditions
and to my translator, Clara Ciccioni.
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Very happy to be participating in this next week, alongside a really stellar lineup. My lecture's called 'Dropping Out: Exodus, Acid Communes, and the Limits of Refusal'.
To what extent do the forgotten utopias of the 1960s and 70s haunt the twenty-first century?
⚡️ACID COMMUNISM – Spectres of the Counterculture
🗓️June 10 – June 11, 2021
➡️Online Conference, live on
More information:
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Check out
@mind_seu
's fantastic project, Cyberfeminism Index, for which I was invited to create a collection. It's a substantial achievement & the result of a huge amount of effort on Mindy's part. Future researchers will find it an invaluable resource.
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Well, if you will wear an all white jumpsuit whilst raising a 9 month-old baby, what do you expect?
The quote “Laundry went from being a weekly nightmare to an unending task” Susan Stresser illustrates the theory developed by
@HelenHester
and
@n_srnck
#K19
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Looking for ppl with an interest in inclusive approaches to gender/sexual/reproductive healthcare to contribute to early-stage discussions for a project on menopause, power & work. Closed workshop happening in London on the eve of Jan 13, as part of
@SciGalleryLon
's gender season
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Just an hour left now. Solidarity to all the people still out in the cold and the wet, working to change the conditions under which we struggle. Remember, everything is horribly, brutally possible. VOTE VOTE VOTE!
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It was such a pleasure to contribute to this - an international training program for journalists in Latin America, organised by
@revistaanfibia
and
@cosecharoja
. Fantastic, thoughtful questions (as one would expect).
¿Qué visiones del futuro nos están vendiendo hoy? Ya estamos en conversación con la escritora y activista inglesa
@HelenHester
en el octavo diálogo de la Beca
#CosechaAnfibia
. ¿Podemos imaginar futuros mejores? 👇
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Many thanks to all the inspirational senior colleagues who supported my application for promotion, particularly
@bratton
,
@littler_jo
and
@mckenziewark
. Your support really means a lot to me.❤️
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1 week to the 'Future (Im)perfect: Utopian Tensions in a Dystopian World' conference. What are post-work utopias for? What can (& can't) they do? How do they navigate the relationship between freedom & necessity? Find out, in my keynote with
@w_stronge
!
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JUST LOOK at this amazing bit of post I received. Full purrogacy now!! It is merch goals and I love it very much. 💓
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"The authors’ focus on a post-capitalist world may deter some readers..."
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"No girl bosses, no heroines, no masters".
@reproutopia
killing it at Loughborough. Can't wait to read the new book, "Enemy Feminisms"
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Really looking forward to participating in this - a scholarship and training program for journalists in Latin America, which 'promotes a space to rethink journalism with the contribution of the main exponents of contemporary thought.'
"Si el mundo actual (y el futuro) está vertebrado por la tecnología, hay que lograr que esa tecnología sea feminista", dice el manifiesto del colectivo Laboria Cuboniks (
@Xenofeminism
).
@HelenHester
es una de sus fundadoras y también nos acompañará durante los 4 meses de trabajo.
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A new interview with Laboria Cuboniks in
@zineseminar
, marking the launch of the Korean translation of the manifesto.
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I'd rather be a flashdrive than a woman
New issue of Film-Philosophy is out - all open access. Includes an article by me on Scarlett Johansson's becoming-flashdrive, with appearances from these great thinkers:
@nemocentric
@wjrcbrown
@HelenHester
@NegarestaniReza
@deontologistics
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I say this because
@abenanav
's critique of automation discourse not only argues that global under-supply of work demands a proactive response from the left, but spends time imagining what a world without work could look like, and what we should be collectively striving for.
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Vital new research by
@Autonomy_UK
, looking at which occupations most expose workers to risk of COVID-19:
The study clearly illustrates the uneven distribution of risk in the UK, particularly in terms of gender and job sector.
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I'll be in Barcelona at the end of March, presenting new material from After Work: The Fight for Free Time.
💥 El feminisme ho està canviant tot. Quan tot canvia, canvien els relats que mouen el món. Torna
#K19
del 20 al 24 de març. Amb la presència de
@paulaboneti
,
@EverydaySexism
,
@monaeltahawy
,
@natzafarre
,
@HelenHester
i moltes més: 👇
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Important to note that, as the article reports, these measures would also allow ‘partners sharing parental leave to spend a full year between them with their newborn babies’; statutory maternity pay is transferable to employed fathers.
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PhD bursaries currently being advertised at UWL. If you're interested in gender, technology, work, sexuality studies, social reproduction theory, (xeno)feminism, and all the rest, I'd love to hear from you.
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Honoured that the Spanish translation of Xenofeminism made it into PlayGround magazine's 'Best Books of 2018':
Thank you
@PlayGrounder
(and thank you
@cajanegraedit
)!
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This whole issue of Theory & Event (on work) looks seriously great, but I'm particularly excited to read articles by
@AmeliaHorgan
,
@DrTomOShea
and
@valeria_graz
.
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Post-work is a radical orientation toward freedom; as such, it isn’t (cannot be) a self-contained project. Any project genuinely committed to extending the realm of freedom must of course encompass more than work, because work alone does not determine the realm of necessity.
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Such a pleasure to talk to
@DrHeatherBerg
about her research. We discuss solidarity, different approaches to worker resistance, and the dis/continuities between porn work and other kinds of work. The book is a real achievement - if you haven't read it, seek it out!
For
#InternationalWomensDay2022
,
@femfutprog
lead
@HelenHester
spoke to
@DrHeatherBerg
about her latest book 'Porn Work', in a wide-ranging discussion of its key themes👇
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Time for what we will: ‘All forms of freedom [...] are intelligible as freedom only insofar as we are free to engage the question of what we should do with our time...
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'Shelter Against Communism', a brief piece looking at work and home in the 20th century, is available to read now via
@e_flux
.
Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek, "Shelter Against Communism", e-flux Architecture and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, "Workplace".
@HelenHester
@n_srnck
@ccawire
Read here:
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UWL is advertising a further round of PhD scholarships! I would be really keen to supervise projects on gender/ technology/ work etc.
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Very pleased to be returning for 2021.
Applications due by November 10th. We are still finalizing program structure with regards to online/offline, travel, etc. Regardless, the calendar is packed. It is perhaps the best program we've organized to date.
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On my way to Manchester for
@R_Williams_Soc
conference on 'Cultural Production & the Redundancy of Work: Precarity, Automation, Critique'. Very much looking forward to it.
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Delighted to announce the publication of
@femfutprog
's first report, on supporting workers in the night-time economy. Massive congratulations to everybody who worked so hard on this.
📎📎📎NEW report
🌙🌒WORKING NIGHTS: municipal strategies for nocturnal workers.
What are the working conditions of the night and what infrastructure is required to enable worker well-being? We consider 4 kinds of worker.
Write-up👇
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Trying to submit an article slagging off “the smart home”, and the Internet is down. Naturally.
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'Perhaps the greatest axis of labour extension during the Industrial Revolution was on an annual basis. The Bank of England, setting commercial trends for the pioneering industrial nation, closed for 47 holidays in 1761, but had cut down to 4 by 1834'- Seccombe
Free time for 2020
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Have been seriously inspired and impressed by the work of my PhD supervisees recently. They're doing some really important stuff, and it's a huge privilege to be able to help out with that in some small way. Some recent highlights in print:
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So stoked to be part of 'A decriminalized future: Sex workers' festival of resistance', celebrating 10 years of
@SexWorkHive
.
I'm hosting a panel on the Sunday, exploring technology, surveillance and the state. Check out the full schedule here:
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I highly recommend Emma's book, which is concise, engaging, well-researched and accessibly written. For a text on such a difficult subject, it's a remarkably easy read. I'm very much looking forward to talking to her about it.
💥Online event reminder👇
👉A year into the pandemic, we discuss the nature of care with Emma Dowling and
@HelenHester
👉Emma and Helen will explore the commodification, marketisation and financialisation of care
🎟️Free! Tues 9 Mar 7pm GMT
@VersoBooks
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Very pleased to see this thoughtful engagement with xenofeminism by Femiskop, a feminist collective from Azerbaijan. Many thanks,
@rafaeloghlu
!
Ksenofeminizm manifesti və haqqında oxuduğum məqalələr və
@HelenHester
yoldaşın eyniadlı kitabından ilhamlanaraq Femiskop üçün Ksenofeminizm və onun təklif edə biləcəyi alternativ gender siyasəti haqqında kiçik bir yazı yazdım:
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Judging by the standard of the participants I worked with earlier this year, I fully expect these final projects to be worthwhile and interesting. Check them out it you can. Well done to all involved, and thank you to Strelka for inviting me to teach!
Join us for Strelka The Terraforming year one public presentation of projects, July 1 and 2 at 7PM MSK (UTC+3). Keynotes by Benjamin H. Bratton, Kim Stanley Robinson, Helen Hester, Lisa Messeri, and Jussi Parikka.
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Salvage - the biannual journal of revolutionary arts and letters, which published my essay 'Technically Female' - has launched a Patreon campaign, in advance of its relaunch. Please consider supporting.
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A short video answering questions put to me by Labora, the Valencian Employment and Training Service, as part of their project on the future of work. All contributions are available here (including one from
@w_stronge
and
@JulianSiravo
):
🆕I hui us deixem l'última xarrada🔚 d'
#ElFuturdelTreball
🔝Amb
@HelenHester
, des de la Universitat de West London, parlem de cures, treball reproductiu, perspectiva feminista.
#SomLabora
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@socialrepro
@reproutopia
I've recently been working on what a more developed XF account of reason & rationality might look like, writing in response to feminist post-humanisms & using Reza’s brilliant ‘The Labor of the Inhuman’ as a touchstone. For those interested:
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How cool does this look?!
We also had DAPHNE by Sara Drake and Hannah Hogwood
DAPHNE is a xenofeminist horror game that interrogates gender as it is embedded with increasing frequency into our digital technologies.
You can check out the devblog here:
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I'm delivering the closing keynote, exploring feminism, post-work, and domestic organisation. Title: 'Work/Space: Architectures of Refusal from the Bachelor Pad to the Commune'
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Looking forward to this!
#FuturosPr
óximos
#CursosCN
El viernes 27/11 lxs invitamos a participar de VER MÁS ALLÁ DEL LUGAR: ALIENACIÓN, UNIVERSALISMO Y SOLIDARIDADES SITUADAS, con
@HelenHester
, en el Curso Contra-imaginaciones técnicas (
@LaCasaEncendida
):
✨ ¡Para agendar! ✨
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With no corrections, baby! Can't wait for Alva to convert the thesis into a book so you can see for yourselves how fantastic it is. <3
Passed my viva this week and just got the award confirmation email from my university, so I'm officially Dr Gotby now
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Thank you so much everybody! One week on, and we’re home and coping and full of love. ❤️❤️❤️
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All of the books are coming
For the niche audience that is interested: the Postwork book from
@HelenHester
and I *is* coming.
The last few months have been very useful for me, regarding the
#BasicIncome
chapter + also the utopia chapter. In particular, learning about the history of Rathbone's campaigning..
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Thank you for having me!
Gracias a todxs lxs que habéis venido hoy a la presentación de “Después del trabajo” de
@HelenHester
en
@AteneoMaliciosa
🧡
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Had an incredible time
#swarmcon
. So many vital conversations happening throughout the day. Massive thanks to the organizers & to the sharp, insightful, engaging speakers on my panel -
@fornicatrix
,
@graciemaybe
,
@Whoretography
&
@aminadujean
. Thank you!!
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For anybody looking to get a better sense of what Autonomy's new Feminist Futures Programme is about, you can find the full mission statement here:
And follow
@femfutprog
for updates!
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Massive congratulations to Gabi! I recommend looking up her thesis - 'Embodied Emotions and Collective Struggle: Hashtag Feminism as Digital Consciousness Raising in Brazil' - as soon as it becomes available via the BL. It's thoughtful and important work.
Call me Dr. Loureiro bc I passed my viva, y'all! With very positive feedback and inspiring conversations. Huge thanks to my supervisor
@HelenHester
for all the support throughout these 4 years and to my external
@Chess_Ess
for the sensitive and detailed engagement w/ my work ♥️🍻
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UWL's 'Gender, Technology, and Work' research cluster is co-organizing a seminar series on 'Feminist Politics and Conservative Backlash in Brazil', courtesy of the ever-excellent
@gabrielaslou
.
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