Ulteriori informazioni
In What's the Use? Sara Ahmed continues the work she began in The Promise of Happiness and Willful Subjects by taking up a single word--in this case, use--and following it around. She shows how use became associated with life and strength in nineteenth-century biological and social thought and considers how utilitarianism offered a set of educational techniques for shaping individuals by directing them toward useful ends. Ahmed also explores how spaces become restricted to some uses and users with specific reference to universities. She notes, however, the potential for queer use: how things can be used in ways that were not intended or by those for whom they were not intended. Ahmed posits queer use as a way of reanimating the project of diversity work as the ordinary and painstaking work of opening up institutions to those who have historically been excluded from them.
Sommario
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction. A Useful Archive 1
1. Using Things 21
2. The Biology of Use and Disuse 68
3. Use as Technique 103
4. Use and the University 141
Conclusion. Queer Use 197
Notes 231
References 257
Index 271
Info autore
Sara Ahmed
Riassunto
Continuing the work she began in The Promise of Happiness and Willful Subjects by taking up a single word and following its historical, intellectual, and political significance, Sara Ahmed explores how use operates as an organizing concept, technology of control, and tool for diversity work.
