::fc-announce:: EMSAH Research Seminar - Melissa Gregg - Friday 11 August

[Geert Lovink]

> From: Vicky McNicol [mailto:v.mcnicol at uq.edu.au]
> Sent: Tuesday, 8 August 2006 1:15 PM
> To: everyone at emsah.uq.edu.au
> Subject: EMSAH Research Seminar - Melissa Gregg - Friday 11 August
>  
> Here's a link to the school webpage for the Melissa Gregg seminar on 
> Friday 11 August 'Working from Home: The Normalization of Flexible 
> Female Labour' 
> http://www.emsah.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=49958&pid=21662 or see 
> below:
>  
> SCHOOL OF ENGLISH, MEDIA STUDIES, AND ART HISTORY
> RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES
>  
> Friday 11 August 1.00-2.00pm
> Room 437, Michie Building, St Lucia Campus
>   
> Working from Home:
> The Normalization of Flexible Female Labour
>  
> Dr Melissa Gregg
>  
> This paper uses recent advertising of new media software and hardware 
> to speculate on the challenges facing both feminist  and labour 
> politics in the so-called New Economy. Feminists are beginning  to 
> note with some discomfort the mutually beneficial relationship between 
> reformist, or ‘equal opportunity’ feminism and neoliberal 
> individualism, particularly as this manifests in the ubiquitous 
> freedom, or burden, of choice. In this paper I explain the fit between 
> neoliberalism and feminism in terms of the hegemony of flexible labour 
> as ideal, arguing that what may appear as apparently generous and 
> progressive workplace policies respond to what is assumed to be 
> women’s ‘natural’ preference for flexible work arrangements. How these 
> arrangements subsequently accumulate to produce micro- and 
> macro-economic inequalities  is the ultimate focus of my interest and 
> concern. I therefore conclude the paper by noting the ways in which 
> women’s ‘choice’ to work when and where they want in information 
> societies largely depends on the very different forms of flexible 
> labour performed by women in other  parts of the globe.
>   
> About the Presenter:
>  
> Melissa Gregg is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for 
> Critical and Cultural Studies and also lectures in the School of 
> English, Media Studies and Art History. She is author of Cultural 
> Studies Affective Voices (Palgrave, forthcoming October) and co-editor 
> of the recent Continuum special issue, Counter-Heroics and 
> Counter-Professionalism in Cultural Studies. Her current projects 
> include a new co-edited collection, The Affect Reader, and further 
> research on the relationship between new media technologies, workplace 
> culture and affect.
>
> For further information or to be added to the EMSAH Research Seminar 
> email list contact: Vicky McNicol by phone on 3365 1412 or by email 
> v.mcnicol at uq.edu.au