CSW Research Affiliate Brown Bag

DATE: Friday, January 18

TIME: 12-1:30 PM

LOCATION: Rolfe 2125

Participants are welcome to bring a snack or lunch.

Cambodian women religious provide insights into rethinking subjectivity.  These women experience empowerment while they subscribe to the restrictive rules of their communities, including gender-specific stipulations. In Schubert’s research in Cambodia, her interlocutors demonstrate subjectivity that is not based on freedom and liberation, which are prioritized in many women’s organizations. Her larger project, “Retheorizing Women’s Empowerment with Insights from Cambodian Women,” aims to enhance the concepts of empowerment employed by many women’s organizations and in the realm of development in general.  In this talk, Schubert will present one alternative to this historically feminist liberationist subjectivity—postsecular feminist subjectivity.  This will include a presentation of various ways of defining postsecular feminism, considering resources from thinkers who seek inspiration from different traditions—both Judith Butler and Rosi Braidotti.  This is a workshopping session to think with all participants and together to explore possibilities.

Lara K. Schubert received her PhD in Religion in 2016 from Claremont Graduate University and is currently a Research Affiliate at UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women.  She is also a Lecturer in Liberal Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at California State University, Los Angeles.  She taught courses in Religious Studies at Pomona College and the Ethnic and Women’s Studies department at Cal Poly Pomona. She was awarded a Fulbright Grant for her field work in Cambodia.