2019 Fall Shelfie: Valérie Simon

Valérie is a third year PhD student in the Philosophy Department at the University of Oregon. Her education includes a BA in Philosophy and Women’s Studies (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada). Her work situates itself at the intersection of phenomenology, philosophy of technology and sexuality studies and is focused on questions that relate to queer and lesbian history, activism and archival practices.

After discovering the New Media and Culture Certificate program during the graduate student orientation week, Valérie joined the NMCC program during her first year at the UO in 2017. Now in her third year in the program, Valérie, looking back, can say that she joined because she is interested in two interrelated questions. First, the use of technologies for social change especially as exemplified by the Lesbian Avengers, a direct action group founded in 1992 in New York City focused on issues of lesbian visibility and survival. Second, because she is interested in the ways in which queer and lesbian history and archives are mobilized to give coherence to queer and lesbian communities formed by different identities, experiences and histories.

Moving forward, Valérie is interested in examining different approaches that focus on technologies in terms of their materiality and their associated practices to explore modes of political action that engage and take up the technologies that transform our lives and worlds.

Recommendations:

“Xenofeminism A Politics for Alienation” by Laboria Cuboniks (https://www.laboriacuboniks.net/)

Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Browne

The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy by Edmund Husserl

Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and Other Articulations of the Real by Bernhard Siegert

Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell

Oversight: Critical Reflections on Feminist Research and Politics by Viviane Namaste

“A World of Shame: Time, Belonging, and Social Media” by Yasmin Nair

“A Manifesto” by Yasmin Nair

“Why is ‘LeftTube’ So White?” by Kat Blaque

“Pewdiepie and The Rebranding of White Nationalism” by Kat Blaque

“The History of Monetization, Demonetization and How it Changed Youtube” by Kat Blaque

The Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye (movie)

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