The Gender Research Group’s Spring Conference is taking place on Friday, April 24th, 12-3pm in HDB1.09.

NUCUSP members Abi Hockaday and Miranda Iossifidis are presenting their work.

Abi Hockaday (English Literature, Language & Linguistics), “Reading the Technodomestic in Science Fiction” – I consider the relation between gender, the domestic, and technology, through a reading of Femizine, the first British science fiction fanzine written for women, by women, in the 1950s. It is the humour and playfulness that mark what I term the ‘technodomestic’ in the fanzine’s stories which helped create a community of women fans exploring cultural anxieties about women’s place in the home – and in fandom.

Miranda Iossifidis  (Geography, Politics & Sociology), “Resisting Population Control at Home and Internationally: Reproductive Justice and Campaigns against LARCs in the 1970s and 1980s” – I explore the solidarities, networks and tensions in feminist conversations and encounters constellated around resistance to population control, in activism against long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs) in the 1970s and 1980s, considering how activists centred racism, classism, and ableism experienced by women, and how they connected coercive practices, and populationist ideas and interventions in the United Kingdom to global population control policies. I undertake a situated analysis of the activisms, drawing on archival material to show how they are shaped by distinct histories of colonialism, racism, and geographies.

In her latest article in Global Constitutionalism, Ruth Houghton explores the relationship between theories of utopia and approaches to constitutional change in theories of constitutional law.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-constitutionalism/article/too-utopian-theories-of-utopia-in-constituent-power/0E9DDB1BD03AE971483CBACFFF413DDC?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark

The abstract of the paper reads: There is something utopian about constituent power, whether this is the unrealisable idea of “the people” or the world-building nature of constitutional change. However, in contemporary constitutional scholarship “utopia” is more often used as a pejorative critique of reform projects that are seen as idealistic ambitious calls for constitutional change, which might fail for being “too utopian”, “too idealistic”, “too unrealistic”. In an attempt to move beyond this critique, this article draws on alternative approaches to utopianism to uncover the temporal assumptions underpinning contemporary approaches to constituent power and highlights the different approaches that can be exposed if theories of utopian-thinking are foregrounded. Both utopia and constituent power are closely aligned with visions of alternative futures, and constitutional scholars agree that there is an intersection between utopian thinking and the subjectivities, temporalities and operationalisation of constituent power. Moving away from utilising utopia as a pejorative label and engaging instead with what it can expose about temporalities, offers alternative approaches to the study of constituent power.

NUCUSP Member, Ruth Houghton took part in a discussion on ‘Utopia as a Method’ for the Talking about Methods (Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies) podcast.

In the episode, Professor Linda Mulcahy talks to Aislinn Fanning, Cristy Clark, Zoe Tongue and Ruth Houghton about utopia as a method. The discussion includes reflections on what utopia as a method is and how it can be used in research projects. The episode also covers the method’s limits and some of its downsides.

NUCUSP member, Dr Lisa Garforth will be speaking at an event in King’s College London in February on ‘New Directions in Utopian Studies’. Lisa’s paper is entitled, ‘Utopia as a social thing: on dreaming, doing, defining and describing’

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-directions-in-utopian-studies-tickets-1979739755903

This event is part of the AHRC network on Utopia and Failure.

Ruth Houghton appears alongside Aoife O’Donoghue and Matt Leggatt in an episode of Utopian and Dystopian Fictions.

Episode 10: Ruth Houghton and Aoife O’Donoghue, Law, Utopianism, and Feminist Utopias – Utopian and Dystopian Fictions | Podcast on Spotify

Oscar Horton Chandler acted as a Rapporteur for the AHRC Utopia and Failure Network workshop in Newcastle in September 2024.

In a blog post on the AHRC Utopia and Failure network blog, Oscar provided some reflections. You can read the blog post: Reflections on our second workshop in Newcastle by Oscar Horton Chandler (I) | School of Social and Political Science

Miranda Iossifidis writes with Mack Sproates and Bethan for AHRC Network Utopia and Failure about ‘Exploring speculative climate justice futures with creative methods’

Read the blog post discussing their Zine-making workshops: Exploring speculative climate justice futures with creative methods | School of Social and Political Science

This zine is made by the Speculative Climate Futures zine workshop folks, including Ansh Meeta, Francesca DiGiorgio, Jim Kaufman, Shevek Fodor & Sophie Buxton. The beautiful cover, paintings and zine layout are by Mack.