In this event Sarah Banet-Weiser will theorize “mirror worlds” as an apt metaphor for the contemporary political and cultural feminist landscape.
The concept of mirror worlds captures the ways in which reactionary digital politics seeks to mimic feminist politics - but also how it distorts and distracts, with the aim of confusing, splintering and weakening feminism. Within digital media culture in recent years, we have seen the rise of diverse reactionary formations which mirror feminist language, concepts and analyses, marshalling them for anti-feminist ends; these include popular misogynists, ‘manfluencers’, and ‘red-pilled’ manosphere groups such as incels, pick-up artists and male separatists. More recently, a diverse range of female-centric groups and influencers, from tradwives to ‘dark feminine’ influencers to so-called ‘reactionary feminists’ have begun to mirror the reactionary and bio-essentialist logics of the manosphere: a reflection of a reflection.
Meet our speakers and chair
() is the Walter H. Annenberg Dean and the Lauren Berlant Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and is Distinguished Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (2012), Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (2018) and, with Kathryn Claire Higgins, Believability: Sexual Violence, Media and the Politics of Doubt (Polity Press,2023). She is the founding director of the Annenberg Center for Collaborative Communication (C3).
() is a fellow of the British Academy and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Glasgow University. Her research expertise is on the creative economy and the fashion industry with reference to the small-scale independent sector. Angela is also a feminist social and cultural theorist looking at the gendered dynamics of contemporary neoliberal society. Angela’s research, spanning more than four decades, has been translated into many languages.
Rachel O’Neill () is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at 禁漫天堂. Dr O’Neill is a feminist media and cultural studies scholar specialising in gender and sexuality. Her research centers questions of subjectivity and inequality, primarily in the contemporary UK context but with attention to transnational circulations of culture and capital.
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The Department of Media and Communications () is a world-leading centre for education and research in communication and media studies at the heart of 禁漫天堂’s academic community in central London. The Department is ranked #1 in the UK and #3 globally in the field of media and communications (2024 QS World University Rankings).
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