LIBE GARCÍA ZARRANZ en 452ºF: Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature 14: January 2016
“In my
understanding, the act of being a feminist killjoy means becoming an obstacle
or an interruption to episodes of sexist exchange, racial discrimination, and
compulsory heteronormativity. These moments disrupt the system momentarily,
thus becoming instances of dissent and disorientation: you are not following
the right path; you are breaking the flow. I here propose to consider these moments
of dissent precisely as moments of joyful insurrection.”
Through a
brief presentation of the way in which joy has been theorised by Braidotti,
Deleuze, and de Spinoza, the article articulates how the viral nature of joy,
that is, it's capacity to spread between people, can be a useful means of
conceptualising the feminist project of opposing gender, racial, sexual, and
class inequalities. The first sections of the article offer an articulate
interrogation of the theory of affect, particularly as it pertains to the ways
in which joy can be mobilised as an effective tool for resisting patriarchal
demands and oppressions. Further, by invoking Barad and Harraway's respective
understandings of diffraction as opposed to reproduction, the article turns to
consider how the work of visual artist and photographer KC Adams http://www.kcadams.net/art/photography/phtotal.html
can be read as a manifestation of refractive techniques for feminist activism. For
García Zarranz, Adams’ work enacts the ‘joyful insurrection’ that interrupts
dominant discourses of Otherness.
Prior to the
conclusions, García Zarranz poses a series of questions that were the central
focus of our discussion:
“What would be the implications of conducting
differences and contradictions as potential sites of joyful insurrection? How
can we devise sustainable ways to conduct ourselves joyfully as a way to
activate action between communities that are often kept apart from each other?
What kind of diffractive methodologies could we articulate to keep building an
archive of sustainable feminist affects?”
