Dr Clare Hemmings

Reader in Feminist Theory

Director of the Gender Institute

More information: LSE Experts' entry
Contact details: Room B508, Tel: 0207 955 7572, Fax:0207 955 6408, c.hemmings@lse.ac.uk

Profile

Clare Hemmings is Reader in Feminist Theory, and has been working full-time at LSE’s Gender Institute for 8 years. Her main research contributions are in the field of transnational gender and sexuality studies, and she welcomes MSc, MPhil/PhD and postdoctoral applications to study with her at the Gender Institute in her primary areas of expertise.

Telling Feminist Stories

Clare has recently completed a major research project, Telling Feminist Stories. The project examines the discursive range and formation of the stories Western feminist theorists tell about the recent past, and links these to broader intellectual and political debates concerning social theory and global gender discourse. She argues that the techniques used to secure these stories make Western feminist discourse particularly amenable to co-optation. The project is both a critical map of the field, and an argument for the urgent social and political importance of gender theory.. Two journal articles (‘Telling Feminist Stories’ and ‘Invoking Affect’ (both 2005) have generated ongoing published debate, and subsequent responses on her part. She has given keynote lectures on the work at conferences in Finland, the US and The Netherlands. The book manuscript, Telling Feminist Stories, will be published in 2009. Ongoing work coming out of this project concerns ‘The Work That Gender Does’ in carrying or deflecting other inequalities. Her interest here is in the limits of existing epistemological frames – such as intersectionality – for understanding the global movements of gender discourse.

International Gender Studies

Clare has been working on the institutionalisation of Gender Studies nationally and internationally for some years: developing curricula and sources, building representation and providing advice. This role has precipitated her research in this area, and resulted in a range of major publications. From 2003-2006 she coordinated the European project ‘Travelling Concepts in Feminist Pedagogy’: 24 partners collaborated on the production of 4 books, which Clare co-edited and contributed to. In addition, she is dedicated to developing a international approach to the continued growth of graduate gender studies in the UK. Clare has published several articles on how such an approach challenges existing (US and UK) presumptions about the institutional and epistemological status of Gender Studies. One of these ‘Ready for Bologna?’ (2006), advocating European benchmarks (‘tuning’) as a good thing for Gender Studies, prompted an editorial response in the European Journal of Women’s Studies (2006), and follow-up piece ‘Tuning Problems’ (2008). Clare continues to work within European Gender Studies via her involvement in the EU-funded Lifelong Learning programme ‘Practicising Interdisciplinarity in Gender Studies’ (taught in Nijmegen in 2008, and Cluj in 2009), and her ongoing participation in the ‘Travelling Concepts’ project.

Sexuality and Globalisation

Since the publication of her first single-authored book, Bisexual Spaces (2002), Clare has focused on the significance of sexuality in relation to globalisation: in particular, its circulation as a globally resonant concept, and the impact that this has on particular bodies, communities, and practices. In 2006, she co-edited a special issue of Feminist Review, ‘Sexual Moralities’, which brought together articles foregrounding the nature of global sexual regulation and its impact on sex tourism and sex work, HIV, and ethnic and religious conflicts. In 2007, her article ‘What’s in a Name?’ was published in the International Journal of Human Rights, and a follow-up piece ‘Sexual Economies’ is due to be published in 2008. The piece explores problems that arise when sexual terms circulate as descriptions rather than concepts with particular histories. On the basis of this and related work, Clare was awarded the 2007 Martin Duberman Fellowship. Clare is particularly interested in the over-association of sexuality with ‘culture’ over ‘materiality’ or ‘the economy’; this is inadequate to understanding the history of sexuality and informalisation or neo-capitalist desires (to name two sites). Her next major project, provisionally entitled Sexual Economies, seeks to develop a theoretical framework more suited to understanding the complex processes of global sexual subjection.

Clare’s research expertise is directly reflected in her teaching, which is research-lead. She is committed to the development of Gender Studies as an international field, and thus invested in student learning. Her dedicated to teaching innovation and student participation at institutional, national and international levels has been recognised through a series of teaching prizes, most notably the award of a National Teaching Fellowship in 2007.

Current Teaching And Administration

Director of the Gender Institute Convenor of the MPhil/PhD Programme in Gender
Co-Convenor of MSc Gender, Development and Globalisation
Convenor of option unit Globalising Sexualities
Convenor of MSc dissertation programme

Supervision
Currently supervising 7 MPhil/PhD students
6 successful PhD awards in the last 5 years

Administration MPhil/PhD admissions MSc Gender, Development and Globalisation admissions
LSE Research Ethics committee member (2008 and ongoing)
LSE Teaching and Learning Innovation Sub-Committee (2009 and ongoing)

Recent Fellowships and Awards

EU Lifelong Learning Programme 2008-2010
National Teaching Fellowship Award 2007
LSE Teaching Excellence Award 2007
Leverhulme Visiting Professorship Host 2007 & 2008
CLAGS Martin Duberman Fellowship 2006-2007.
NL/UK British Council Research Fellowship 2004

Recent Visiting Fellowships

Docentship in Women’s Studies, University of Tampere, Finland – 2008 and ongoing
Visiting Professorship in Women’s Studies, Duke University, USA, Spring 2006
Visiting Fellowship, Women’s Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, 2002 & 2004
Visiting Fellowship, Women’s Studies, Duke University, USA Spring 2003

Recent Professional Activitities

Collective Editor. Feminist Review (Palgrave)
Editorial Board Membership of: Subjectivity and New Social Movements.
External Co-Chair of Feminist and Women’s Studies Association (UK and Ireland) -- 2003-2006
Project Manager of ‘Travelling Concepts in Feminist Pedagogy: European Perspectives’, 2003-2006.

External examining

External PhD examiner - University of Utrecht (2008), University of Cardiff (2007), University of Melbourne (2007), University of Lancaster (2006), University of ZwazuluNatal, S.A. (2006)

Internal PhD examiner – University of London (2005 and 2006)

External Programme Examiner:

MA in Sexuality and Gender , University of Manchester (2008 and ongoing)
MA Gender Studies and MA Gender Research, University of Newcastle (2005-2006)

Selected Recent Publications

Books, Edited Collections and Special Issues

Telling Feminist Stories - forthcoming (2008/9)

With Veronica Vasterling, Enikő Demény, Ulla Holm, Päivi Korvajärvi and Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou, Practising Interdisciplinarity in Gender Studies (York: Raw Nerve Press, 2006)

Co-editor, Travelling Concepts in Feminist Pedagogy: European Perspectives (York: Raw Nerve Press, 2006). [series of 4 texts and website]

Co-editor, ‘Sexual Moralities’, Feminist Review, Issue 83, 2006.

Co-editor, ‘Everyday Struggling’, Feminist Review, Issue 82, 2006.

Bisexual Spaces: a Geography of Gender and Sexuality (New York: Routledge, 2002).

Journal Articles

'Affect and Agency: Reading with Tate and Ram', Social Text 2009 (forthcoming)

Translation of ‘Telling Feminist Stories’, Feminist Theory, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005 pp.115-139, in Revistas Estudos Feministas, with 3 responses (in Portuguese) (2009)

‘Generational Dilemmas: a Response to Iris van der Tuin’s ‘”Jumping Generations”: on Second- and Third-Wave Feminist Epistemology’, ‘Feminist Timelines’, Australian Feminist Studies, Vol 24, March 2009, pp. 33-37.

‘Tuning Problems? Notes on Women’s and Gender Studies and the Bologna Process ‘, European Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol 15, No. 2, 2008: 117-127.

‘What’s in a Name? Bisexuality, Transnational Sexuality Studies and Western Colonial Legacies’, International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 11 Nos.1/2 March 2007, pp. 13-32.

‘Rescuing Lesbian Camp’, Special Issue: ‘Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies’, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1/2, 2007, pp. 175-182.

‘What is a Feminist Theorist Responsible for?: Reply to Torr’, Feminist Theory, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2007, pp. 69-76.

‘Ready for Bologna? The Impact of the Declaration on Women’s and Gender Studies in the UK’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2006, pp. 315-323.

‘Invoking Affect: Cultural Theory and the Ontological Turn’, Cultural Studies, Vol. 19, No. 5, 2005, pp. 548-567.

‘Telling Feminist Stories’, Feminist Theory, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005 pp.115-139.

‘Beyond Women’s Studies versus Gender Studies: the Life and Times of Academic Feminism’, The Making of European Women’s Studies, Volume VI, 2005.

Chapters in Books

‘Rescuing Lesbian Camp’, in Noreen Giffney and Katherine O’Donnell, eds, Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies (Harrington Park Press, 2007).

‘Rappresentare la Bisessualità’, in Clotilde Barbarulli e Liana Borghi, eds. Forme Della Diversità: Genere, Precarietà, Intercultura (Cagliari: Cooperativa Editrice Universitaria, 2006).

‘The Life and Times of Academic Feminism: Checking the Vital Signs of Women’s and Gender Studies’, in Kathy Davis and Mary Evans, eds, The Handbook of Women’s and Gender Studies (London: Sage, 2006), pp.14-34, reprinted in A. Honing, ed Travelling Heritages (Amsterdam: IIAV, 2008), pp. 263-284.

14 Entries in Jo Eadie, ed., Sexuality: A Glossary (London: Arnold, 2004).

With Josephine Brain, ‘Imagining the Feminist Seventies’, in, Helen Graham and Ann Kaloski, eds, The Feminist Seventies (York: Raw Nerve Books, 2003), pp.11-24.

‘ “All My Life I’ve Been Waiting for Something”: Theorising Femme Narrative in The Well of Loneliness’, in, Laura Doan and Jay Prosser, eds, Palatable Poison: Critical Perspectives on The Well of Loneliness Past and Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 179-96.

Editorials
With Irene Gedalof and Lucy Bland, ‘Editorial: Sexual Moralities’, Feminist Review, 83, (2006) pp. 1-3.

With Amal Treacher, ‘Editorial: Everyday Struggling’, Feminist Review, 82, (2006) pp. 1-5.

Reports
‘Report from the Athena Tuning Workshop in Budapest (2007), Athena: the Making of European Women’s Studies, Volume IX.

With Ann Kaloski, ‘Report on Travelling Concepts in Women’s Studies: European Perspectives’, Athena: The Making of European Women’s Studies, Volume VII, 2006.

‘Report of “Travelling Concepts in Feminist Pedagogy”’, Athena: The Making of European Women’s Studies, Volume VI, 2005.

‘Travelling Concepts, Flexible Funding’, Athena: The Making of European Women’s Studies, Volume V, 2004, pp.153-59.

With Eva Bahovec, ‘Teaching Travelling Concepts in Europe’, Feminist Theory, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2004, pp.333-342.

Recent International Keynote Lectures

‘Feminist Knowledge Tactics’, Women’s Studies, University of Utrecht, November 2007.

‘What is a Feminist Theorist Responsible For?’ The Feminist Theory Workshop, Duke University, USA, March 2007.

‘Resisting the Presumed in Feminist Theory, Annual Women’s Studies Conference, University of Tampere, Finland, November 2006.

‘Life and Times of Academic Feminism’, Archiving Activism, at the IIAV (International Women’s Archive), Amsterdam, December 2005.

‘Time Space and Translation’, Heteronormativity - A Fruitful Concept?, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, June 2005.

‘Seeing and Believing: Ethics and Practices of Bisexual Cartography’, Ethics, Representation, Sexuality, University of Florence, September 2004.