Antke Engel

Vita

Antke Engel is director of the “Institute for Queer Theory” situated in Hamburg and Berlin (www.queer-institut.de). She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy at Potsdam University (Germany) in 2001 and held a visiting professorship for Queer Theory at Hamburg University between 2003 and 2005. The focus of her work is on feminist and poststructuralist theory, on conceptualizations of sexuality and desire, and on the critique of representation. Her dissertation "Wider die Eindeutigkeit. Sexualität und Geschlecht im Fokus queerer Politik der Repräsentation" (Frankfurt/Main, Campus, 2002) Engel proposes a strategy of equivocation as a means of queer cultural politics. Apart from extensive teaching experience and public lecturing, Antke Engel has also been engaged as an activist, a cultural worker, and a magazine publisher – believing in the mutual inspiration of theory and politics. Recently she published: Bilder von Sexualität und Ökonomie. Queere kulturelle Politiken im Neoliberalismus, Bielefeld (transcript) 2009.

ICI-Project

Queer/ing Neoliberalism? Images of Sexuality and Economy
The book project "Queer/ing Neoliberalism?" proposes readings of visual representations that allow examination of how sexuality and the economy are currently interrelated in social and cultural practices. Asking for the conditions of the recent pluralization of genders and sexualities in late modern societies, the book project focuses on a specific field of tension, namely those between neoliberal economic transformations and diverse movements in sexual politics. (October 2007-December 2008) The follow-up conference project "Desiring Economies - Economies of Desire" prposes to look at economy through the lense of desire. The title suggests a double perspective and multiple meanings: "Desiring Economies" proposes that we desire economies, diverse economies, economies different to the capitalist versions we know. "Economies of Desire" takes up the idea that desire is functioning according to a household logic, but also asks critically whether it is useful to understand desire in economic terms. (since October 2008)

click here for a long version of the CV

Publications

Monographies

Bilder von Sexualität und Ökonomie. Queere kulturelle Politiken im Neoliberalismus, Bielefeld (transcript), 2009

Wider die Eindeutigkeit. Sexualität und Geschlecht im Fokus queerer Politik der Repräsentation, Frankfurt/M. (Campus) 2002

Co-Editing
Queere Politik: Analysen, Kritik, Perspektiven. Issue of: femina politica. Zeitschrift für feministische Politikwissenschaft 14 (1) 2005
quaestio (ed.): Queering Demokratie. Sexuelle Politiken, Berlin (Querverlag) 2000

Essays in books
How to Queer Things with Images? Von der Phantasielosigkeit der Performativität und der Bildlichkeit des Begehrens / How to Queer Things with Images: On the lack of fantasy in performativity and the imaginativeness of desire, in: Paul, Barbara / Schaffer, Johanna (Hg): Mehr(wert) Queer. Queer Added (Value). Visuelle Kultur, Kunst und Gender-Politiken – Visual Culture, Art, and Gender Politics, Bielefeld (transcript) 2009 (forthcoming)
Unauffällig, unbehelligt – und staatstragend. Sexualpolitiken in Zeiten konservativer Restauration, in: Krass, Andreas (Hg): Queer Theory, Berlin (trafo): 2009 (forthcoming)
Wider dem Toleranzpluralismus. Sexualität und eine Politik des agonalen Pluralismus, in: Castro Varela, María do Mar (ed.): Soziale (Un)Gerechtigkeit. Kritische Perspektiven auf Diversity, Intersektionalität  und Antidiskriminierung, Münster / Hamburg / London (LIT) 2009 (forthcoming)
Ökonoqueer. Sexualität und Ökonomie im Neoliberalismus, in: AG Queer Studies (Hg): Verqueerte Verhältnisse. Intersektionale, ökonomiekritische und strategische Interventionen, Hamburg (Männerschwarm) 2009: 101-119
Geschlecht und Sexualität. Jenseits von Zweigeschlechtlichkeit und Heteronormativität, in: Moebius, Stephan / Reckwitz, Andreas (ed.): Poststrukturalistische Sozialwissenschaft, Frankfurt/M. (Suhrkamp) 2008: 330-346
Gefeierte Vielfalt. Umstrittene Heterogenität. Befriedete Provokation. Sexuelle Lebensformen in spätmodernen Gesellschaften, in: Bartel, Rainer / Finster, Waltraud / Ziegler, Meinrad (eds.): Heteronormativität und Homosexualitäten, Innsbruck, Wien, Bozen (StudienVerlag), 2008: 43-63
Politics under Conditions of Precariousness and Violence. Interview with Judith Butler, in: Grzinic, Marina / Reitsamer, Rosa (eds.): New Feminisms. Worlds of Feminism, Queer and Networking Conditions, Wien (Loecker), 2008: 135-146
Engel, Antke: Bilder der Verführung in die privatisierte Verantwortung. Antke Engel im Gespräch mit Renate Lorenz und Brigitta Kuster, in: Lorenz, Renate / Kuster, Brigitta: Sexuell arbeiten. Eine queere Perspektive auf Arbeit und prekäres Leben, Berlin (b_books) 2007: 272-288
Die Denaturalisierung von Geschlecht und Sexualität. Queer/feministische Auseinandersetzungen mit Foucault, in: Bettinger, Frank / Anhorn, Roland / Stehr, Johannes (eds.): Foucaults Machtanalytik und Soziale Arbeit (VS Verlag) 2007: 134-153 (together with Nina Schuster)
Unter Verzicht auf Autorisierung. Foucaults Begriff der Akzeptanz und der Status des Wissens in queerer Theorie und Bewegung, in: Langner, Ronald / Luks, Timo / Schlimm, Anette / Straube, Gregor / Thomaschke, Dirk (eds.): Ordnungen des Denkens. Debatten um Wissenschaftstheorie und Erkenntniskritik, Münster (LIT) 2007: 269 - 286
Who is – Who – is the Political Subject. A Critique of Tolerance from the Viewpoint of Political Participation, transl. Silvia Baur and Jon Smale, in: Heuck, Farida et al. (eds.): Gefährliche Kreuzungen. Grammatik der Toleranz, München (Silke Schreiber) 2006: 128-142
Traveling Images. Desire as Movement. Desire as Method, in: Basiuk, Tomasz / Ferens, Dominika / Sikora, Tomasz (eds.): Out Here: Local and International Perspectives in Queer Studies, Cambridge (Cambridge Scholars Press) 2006: 13-24
Die Verschränkung von Sexualität und Ökonomie. Subjektkonstituierung unter neoliberalen Vorzeichen, in: Ernst, Waltraud (ed.): Leben und Wirtschaften Geschlechterkonstruktionen durch Arbeit, Münster (LIT) 2005: 136-152
Für einen Dialog ohne gemeinsame Grundlage, in: Bader, Simone / Schmeiser, Jo (eds.): Things. Places. Years, Wien (Studienverlag) 2005: 369-387
Entschiedene Interventionen in der Unentscheidbarkeit. Von queerer Identitätskritik zur VerUneindeutigung als Methode, in: Harders, Cilia / Kahlert, Heike / Schindler, Delia (eds.): Forschungsfeld Politik, Wiesbaden (VS Verlag) 2005: 261-282
Wie regiert die Sexualität? Michel Foucaults Konzept der Gouvernementalität im Kontext queer/feministischer Theoriebildung, in: Guttiérez Rodríguez, Encarnación / Pieper, Marianne (eds.): Gouvernementalität. Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Debatte im Anschluss an Foucault, Frankfurt/M (Campus) 2003: 224-239
Die VerUneindeutigung der Geschlechter - eine queere Strategie zur Veränderung gesellschaftlicher Machtverhältnisse, in: Ulf Heidel, et al. (eds.): Jenseits der Geschlechtergrenzen. Sexualitäten, Identitäten und Körper in Perspektiven von Queer Studies, Hamburg (Männerschwarm) 2001: 346-364
Differenz (der) Rechte. Sexuelle Politiken und der Menschenrechtsdiskurs,
in: quaestio (ed.): Queering Demokratie [sexuelle Politiken], Berlin (Querverlag) 2000: 157-174 
Das Schrumpfen des Öffentlichen als Anlaß neuer Kampfkulturen,
in: quaestio (ed.): queering demokratie [sexuelle politiken], Berlin (Querverlag) 2000: 96-99
Geschlechterkonstituierung jenseits der Zweigeschlechtlichkeit, in: Disselnkötter, A. et al. (eds.): Evidenzen im Fluß. Demokratieverluste in Deutschland, Duisburg 1997: 153-163
Verqueeres Begehren, in: Hark, Sabine (ed.): Grenzen lesbischer Identitäten, Berlin (Querverlag) 1996: 73-95
SexGender as a Social Construction and an Ongoing Process. Feminist Philosophy Challenged by and Challenging Multiple Power Relations, in: Weinstein, Jack (ed.): Academic Inquiry: in Progress, Wien (IWM) 1995: 53-58

Essays in Magazines
Das Bild als Akteur – das Bild als Queereur. Methodologische Überlegungen zur sozialen Produktivität der Bilder, in: FKW. Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur, 45, 2008: 12-25
Aneignung / Umarbeitung / VerUneindeutigung, in: Bildpunkt, Sommer 2007: 4-7
Normal Love (exhibition review), in: springerin. Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, xiii, 2, 2007: 61-61
Challenging the Heteronormativity of Tolerance Pluralism. Articulations of Non-normative Sexualities, in: redescriptions. Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History, vol. 11, 2007: 78-98
No Sex, No Crime, No Shame. Privatized Care and the Seduction into Responsibility, in: Nora. Nordic Journal of Women's Studies, Vol. 15 (3) 2007: 114-132
Loud & Lusty Lesbian Queers, in: The Journal of Lesbian Studies, Vol. 10, nos. 3/4 (Haworth Press, 2006) also in: Giffney, Noreen / O'Donnell, Katherine (ed.): Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press) 2007: 265-273
Aneignung / Umarbeitung / VerUneindeutigung, in: Bildpunkt, Sommer 2007: 4-7
Szenarien des Begehrens. Post-ödipale Begehrenstheorien aus queer-theoretischer Perspektive, in: juridikum. zeitschrift im rechtsstaat, 4, 2006: 210-215
A Queer Politics of Representation: Exploring the Intersections of Sexuality and Economy, in: framework: the finnish art review, no 5: Involvement/Detachment; July 2006: 18-22
A Queer Strategy of Equivocation. The Destabilisation of Normative Heterosexuality and the Rigid Binary Gender Order, in: interalia 1, 2006: http://www.interalia.org.pl/numery.php
Das zwielichtige Verhältnis von Sexualität und Ökonomie. Repräsentationen sexueller Subjektivität im Neoliberalismus, in: Das Argument, 2/2005: 224-236
Diversity Management and the Politics of Difference (pdf, 2004), http://www.queerworking.de/reworking/reports.htm
Sandkastenträume. Queer/feministische Überlegungen zu Verwandtschaft und Familie, in: femina politica 12 (1) 2003: 36-45
Vater Arsch. Was verletzt die Heteronorm?, exhibition catalogue of Ines Doujak „Vater Arsch“, Vienna (Secession) 2002: 6-15
Gay Sex meets Gender-Unordnung, taz hamburg, 30.11.2000
Umverteilungspolitiken: Aneignung und Umarbeitung der begrenzten Ressource Maskulinität in lesbischen und transgender Subkulturen, in: Die Philosophin 22/2000: 69-84
Wildpfetische. Gedankensprünge über ein Poster von Ines Doujak, in: Eikon. Internationale Zeitschrift für Photographie und Medienkunst, Wien, 32/2000, S. 50/51 (together with Ruth Noack) 
Queer-feministische und kanakische Angriffe auf die Nation, in: vor der information 1999/2000; Sondernr.: Antirassistische feministische Öffentlichkeiten (ed. Jo Schmeiser / Marth): 2-5
Prozeß versus Produkt. Ein inszeniertes Gespräch zum Videoprojekt "Frauensolidarität/Frauenbeziehungen" (together with Dagmar Fink, Ines Doujak, Doro Wiese, Gabriele Bargehr), in: Stoff Nr. 10/1999: 16/17

Reviews
Normal Love. Review of an exhibition by Renate Lorenz, in: Springerin Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, 2, 2007: 60-61
Volker Woltersdorff: Coming Out. Die Inszenierung schwuler Identitäten zwischen Auflehnung und Anpassung, in: invertito. Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Homosexualitäten, vol. 8, 2006: 213-216
Debate rather than Dialogue, zu: Chantal Mouffe: On the Political, in: redescriptions. Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History, vol. 10, 2006: 196-202
Leb Wohl, falsches Bewusstsein. Heute regiert der Reiz der freiwilligen Unterwerfung, zu: Isolde Charim: Der Althusser-Effekt, in: Frankfurter Rundschau, 04.01.2003: 20
Soldatische Sorge. Subjekt, Macht und Geschlecht bei Heidegger, zu: Susanne Lettow: Die Macht der Sorge, in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 50 (5) 2002: 986-988
Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Encarnación: Intellektuelle Migrantinnen, in: Das Argument 238, 42.Jg. 5/6, 2000: 914-916
Staatsarchitektur - widerständige Eingriffe in rassistische Migrations-und Flüchtlingspolitiken (zu: Vor der Information 7/8 1998), in: Stoff Nr. 10/1999: 10/11
Cornelia Ott: Die Spur der Lüste. Sexualität, Geschlecht und Macht, in: Die Philosophin 19/1999: 88-92
Heike Kahlert: Weibliche Subjektivität. Geschlechterdifferenz und Demokratie in der Diskussion, in: Die Philosophin 16/1997: 96-99
Birgit Rommelspacher: Schuldlos-Schuldig?, in: Hamburger FrauenZeitung 45/1995
Adriana Cavarero: Platon zum Trotz, in: Feministische Studien 11.Jg., 2/1993: 162-164
Hügel/Lange/Ayim u.a. (Hg.): Entfernte Verbindungen, in: Hamburger FrauenZeitung 38/1993: 22-24
Oguntoye/Opitz/Schultz (Hg.): Farbe bekennen. Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte, in: Hamburger FrauenZeitung 35/1993: 44-47
Vom Tabubruch zum Bekenntniszwang; zu: Katharina Rutschky: Erregte Aufklärung, in: Hamburger FrauenZeitung 34/1992: 57/58
Käte Meyer-Drawe: Illusionen von Autonomie, in: Die Philosophin, 5/1992: 91-94

Project

(October 2007-October 2008)

Queer/ing Neoliberalism? Images of Sexuality and Economy

"Queer/ing Neoliberalism?" proposes readings of visual representations that allow examination of how sexuality and the economy are currently interrelated in social and cultural practices. Asking for the conditions of the recent pluralization of genders and sexualities in late modern societies, the book project focuses on a specific field of tension, namely those between neoliberal economic transformations and diverse movements in sexual politics. At this stage, visual representations that subvert binary gender norms and compulsory heterosexual desires can be found not only in queer art and activism, but also in commercial media representations and advertisements. Looking at a selection of these images I am particularly interested in those moments where neoliberal discourses enter queer subcultural productions, or where commercial representations adopt queer discourses and images. These, I propose, are moments of tension that indicate complex, interdependent relations and reciprocal constitutions between sexuality and economy.

Neoliberal developments are in themselves double-edged: In promoting individualization they simultaneously function as forms of normalization, which demand subjection to meritocratic principles. Agents in sexual politics are drawn between the neoliberal promise of freedom and sexual liberation on the one hand, and new forms of hierarchization and exclusion due to the universalization of the market logic on the other. Therefore, referring to the economic considerations of my project I would like to ask: Is there a privileged association between market liberalism and sexual liberalism? Can we understand the tensions within and between neoliberal and sexual politics as productive tensions, in the sense that they support the dislodging of socio-cultural hierarchies and regimes of normalization? Or do queer/feminist politics demand the Queering of Neoliberalism?

In addition to these socio-economic questions, the project also reflects on cultural politics, or more specifically, on the relevance of visual representations to social transformations. For this matter the project also includes a methodological section that considers how ways of reading images can be transferred from cultural studies and art theory to the social and political sciences. While proposing readings of specific images I will reflect methodologically on the question of how one can intersect practices inspired by feminist critique of representation, deconstruction, discourse analysis and governmentality studies - possibly explaining the outcome of this combination as a form of queering.

I propose three fields of tension that I would particularly like to elaborate on:
1.) The seduction into privatized responsibility
Neoliberal discourses confront individuals with contradictory demands for autonomy and responsibility or care. Social welfare is continuously discarded from state programs and given over to individuals or family units, who are expected to provide the resources for health care, aging, and blows of fate, for education, leisure, and culture on a private level. While this amplifies familial (and possibly, though not recognized by the state, friendship) bonds, the individual is still asked to develop an autonomous, self-reliant subjectivity. My thesis is that sexuality plays an important role in mediating the tensions and conflicting demands between individualization and care.
2.) The intimate encounter of market liberalism and sexual liberalism
The claim of a quasi-natural affinity of market liberalism and sexual liberalism can be found in economic as well as sexual discourses. My thesis is that the interweaving of the two, signified by an equation of sexual and consumer desires, relies very much on the constructionist understanding that interprets gender and sexuality as open to and even depending on the individuals developing and reworking their (gendered and sexualized) subjectivities. But do we have to understand these processes as conditioned by market logic? Or do we end up with very specific forms of freedom and agency, when the neoliberal market economy turns out to be the decisive way out of "sex and gender as natural fate"?
3.) The scandal of commercialized sex - the spectacle of sexual commerce
Here I would like to consider the contradictory simultaneity of privatization and publicity. If there is more tolerance for non-normative genders and sexualities now, this depends on the precondition that they are understood as "private" practices, but nevertheless have to be thematized continuously as a matter of public interest or cultural spectacle. Does this paradoxical situation effect the privatization of public space and does it depoliticize sexuality? Or can we understand the seesaw between scandal and spectacle as productively challenging the borders between public and private – opening new or interesting forms of re-politicization?

I hope that the visual material I am working with or the readings I propose will impart something about the social integration of diverse gendered and sexual subjectivities, as well as about visual strategies in cultural politics and their relevance for social transformations. The term social transformation refers to hegemonic processes of integration and normalization as well as to minoritarian interventions in sexual politics – therefore opening up once more the invitation to reflect on tensions as constitutive moments of social relations and politics.

Content
Queer/ing Neoliberalism? Images of Sexuality and Economy

Introduction

I. Sexuality and Economy in Neoliberal and Sexual Politics

Normalization and Integration: Sexuality in Late Modern Societies           Individualization, Market Logic and the Economization of the Social     
Visual Representations in Sexual Politics and Neoliberal Politics

II. Reading Images of Dissident Sexualities

Seduction into Privatized Responsibility
The Intimate Encounter of Market Liberalism and Sexual Liberalism
The Scandal of Commercialized Sex – the Spectacle of Sexual Commerce

III. The Productivity of Images and Readings 

Visual Representations as Constructing Meaning and Social Reality           
Reading Images – Combining Semiotics, Discourse Analysis, and Political Economy
Ethics/Politics: Reading, Rereading, Reworking Norms and Hierarchies

IV. Visual Cultural Politics and Social Transformation

Images of Sexuality and Economy as Neoliberal Techniques of Governance and Production
Visual Strategies of Equivocation  
Integration versus Intervention: Political Tensions Concerning Social Transformations

V. Conclusion

forthcoming (in German) under the title:
Bilder von Sexualität und Ökonomie. Queer kulturelle Politiken im Neoliberalismus, Bielefeld (transcript) October 2008

Institute for Queer Theory

(Hamburg / Berlin)

Director: Antke Engel (Dr. phil. Philosophy / Queer Theory)

Rethinking and redesigning sexuality and gender

The Institute for Queer Theory is an institution of critical science, cultural production and socio-political change. From a transdisciplinary perspective and embedded in international exchange the Institut für Queer Theory examines how sex/gender and sexuality are designed, represented and lived: What images and ideas determine our understanding of genders and sexualities? What kinds of relationships and social practices are associated with this? And how do institutions such as marriage, family, school and church, but also authorities such as state and economy influence sexual ways of life? And in particular, how do other social differences and hierarchies intersect with gender and sexuality? It is examined critically what effects normative standards and the hierarchies of power have. The predominance of heterosexuality is discussed and the seeming “naturalness” of the binary sexual system is questioned. The Institute for Queer Theory advocates supporting a variety of sexual ways of life and organising social differences free of hierarchies.

Queer perspectives

The Institute for Queer Theory organises scientific conventions and workshops, offers thematic working groups and initiates interdisciplinary, cooperative research projects. It is interested in international cooperation and offers its work to a general public. The public is addressed by presentations, seminars or exhibitions, which communicate queer perspectives and findings. Publications – in various formats – document the events. The institute cooperates with projects of arts and culture as well as political initiatives and movements working towards changing the hetero-normative situation.

International Board: Tomasz Basiuk (University of Warsaw), Judith Butler (UC Berkeley), Lisa Duggan (NYU, New York), Judith Halberstam (USC, Los Angeles), Sabine Hark (University of Postdam), Cornelia Klinger (Institute for Human Sciences IWM, Wien), Andrea Maihofer (University of Basel), Tuija Pulkkinen (University of Jyväskylä), Ailbhe Smyth (UC Dublin)

www.queer-institut.de
mail@queer-institut.de