CEEN Seminar: The Promise of Queer Aesthetic Sensibility as a Cultivated Disposition

Creativity and Emergent Educational Futures Network

The Promise of Queer Aesthetic Sensibility as a Cultivated Disposition

Speaker: Matthew Isherwood (University of Exeter)

This seminar introduces Matthew Isherwood’s doctoral work. It will be of value to educators and students interested in aesthetic theory, queer theory, weak theory, arts education, art-based methodologies, and issues of inclusion and social justice.

The study brings aesthetic theory into conversation with queer theory and asks what that conversation can reveal about a form of aesthetic sensibility that might be said to have something of a queer quality. Influenced by the writing of Eve Sedgwick and José Muñoz, the study considers the concept of queer sensibility as a developed disposition that attends to how one might learn to live beyond the here and now. It explores how this cultivated form of attention allows one to consider more ethical responses to self-formation that critique and refuse overarching structures that limit the pleasures, desires, and bodily relations we afford ourselves and others by attending to the sustaining potentiality of queerness. These queer survival tactics are examined through autobiographic accounts, the exploration of queer artworks and art objects, and the creative practices of queer artists. The unfolding conversation moves toward a queer pedagogy that may interest educators who wish to cultivate stances and dispositions capable of critiquing normative educational practices related to gender and sexuality and making queer realities more possible.

Matthew is a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia, where he taught for several years as a sessional instructor. Currently, he holds the position of Lecturer in Creativity & Arts Education at the University of Exeter.

Those interested in attending, RSVP to m.isherwood2@exeter.ac.uk and indicate whether you will attend face-to-face or require an online link.