The Forms of Naked Agency and Genital Cursing

media release: Naminata Diabate, an associate professor of English at Cornell University, who will be visiting the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the week of April 11. The title of Naminata's public lecture is, "The Forms of Naked Agency and Genital Cursing."  Her recently published book won the 2021 ASA Best Book Prize.

This talk tracks the changing nature of genital cursing as it travels spatially, temporally, and formally. It also considers the gesture's newly acquired form, what Naminata Diabate calls "naked agency," as a point of departure for deliberating on the texture of the women's and their targets' agency. A comparison of the forms of naked agency and genital cursing carries larger implications for how form shapes theory in a world of dispersion, multiplication, and circulation.

114 VAN HISE

RECEPTION TO FOLLOW IN 1414 VAN HISE

Co-Sponsored by the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholars Fund, the Department of African Cultural Studies, and the Department of Gender and Women's Studies.