PhD Courses in Denmark

Feminist theories in action: Gender, Queer, Crip, Race, and Affect

PhD School at the Faculty of Humanities at University of Copenhagen

Dates and time: 1 - 5 September 2025 from 9:00 to 16:00

The course introduces and explores theoretical perspectives and analytical strategies within gender theories. The course engages with multiple perspectives from contemporary feminist theories highlighting queer theory, theories of race and racialization, crip theory, affect theory and queer archival strategies. The course is taught by multiple gender studies scholars and focuses on the use of such multiple perspectives in relation to participants projects and analytical practices.

Academic Aim

  1. To introduce and discuss queer, affective, crip, and anti-racist ways of analyzing with gender theory
  2. To enable students to critically engage with these perspectives in relation to the methodological approach of their respective projects.

Target group
PhD students interested in working with gender, affect, queer, dis/ability or racialization as well as more broadly interested in feminist and queer methodologies and ethics. The students may participate regardless of the level and stage of the project. However, it will be an advantage if they have started to some degree to reflect on methodological perspectives of their project.

Course lecturers

  • Associate Professor Mons Bissenbakker, NorS
  • Associate Professor Michael Nebeling Petersen, NorS
  • Assistant Professor Maria Bee Christensen-Strynø, IKK
  • Professor, Rikke Andreasen, RUC
  • Professor Lene Myong, Stavanger University, NO
  • Professor, Ulrika Dahl, Uppsala Universitet, SE

Course organizer: Associate Professor Camilla Bruun Eriksen, 

Programme:

Monday, September 1st
09.00-12.00: Camilla Bruun Eriksen: Introduction and feminist theory
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00-16.00: Mons Bissenbakker: Affect theory

Tuesday, September 2nd
09.00-12.00: Lene Myong: Racism and racialisation
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00-16.00: Workshop og paper-fremlæggelse: Lene Myong and Michael Nebeling will give feedback.

Wednesday, September 3rd
09.00-12.00: Maria Bee Christensen-Strynø: Crip genealogies
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00-16.00: Workshop og paper-fremlæggelse: Maria Bee Christensen-Strynø and Camilla Bruun Eriksen will give feedback.

Thursday, September 4th
9.00-12.00: Michael Nebeling Petersen & Rikke Andreasen: Queering the archive
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00-16.00: Workshop og paper-fremlæggelse: Michael Nebeling Petersen & Rikke Andreasen will give feedback

Friday, September 5th
09.00-12.00: Ulrika Dahl:
12.00-13.00: Lunch
13.00-15.30: Workshop og paper-fremlæggelse: Ulrika Dahl and Mons Bisenbakker will give feedback
15.30-16.00: Conclusions & reflections

Language: English

ECTS: 3.9

Max. numbers of participants: 15

Preparation
Students must send an abstract outlining their PhD project (no more than half a page) when they register for the course. The abstract must be sent by e-mail to phd@hrsc.ku.dk. Once admitted and before the course will begin the students must prepare a 20 minute oral presentation based on their project. More information about the presentation will be given once the students have been officially admitted to the course. 

Registration: Please register via the link in the box no later than 31 July 2025.

Further information: For more information about the PhD course, please contact the PhD Administration (phd@hrsc.ku.dk).

 

Literature:

Introduction to feminist and queer theory

  • Nina Lykke (2012): Feminist Studies - A Guide to Intersectional Theory, Methodology and Writing (also in Danish under the title Kønsforskning: en guide til feministisk teori, metodologi og skrift)
  • Hannah McCann & Whitney Monaghan (2019): Queer Theory Now - From Foundations to Futures

Affect theory

  • Sara Ahmed (2004) Introduction: Feel Your Way, in: The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge.
  • Clare Hemmings (2011) INTRODUCTION, in: Why Stories Matter. The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory. Duke University Press.
  • Brian Massumi (2002) Introduction: Concrete Is as Concrete Doesn’t, in: Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke University Press. Download from: https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/700/chapter/133360/IntroductionConcrete-Is-as-Concrete-Doesn-t
  • Myong, L & Bissenbakker, M (2021) Attachment as Affective Assimilation: Discourses on Love and Kinship in the Context of Transnational Adoption in Denmark, in: NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. Download from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08038740.2021.1891133

Racism and racialization

  • Hunter, Elizabeth Löwe (2021), Diasporiske perspektiver på racialiseringens kolonialitet i Danmark, in Periskop nr. 25: 89-111. https://tidsskrift.dk/periskop/article/view/128472
  • Svendsen, Stine H. Bang (2020) Saami Women at the Threshold of Disappearance: Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) and Karin Stenberg’s (1884–1969) Challenges to Nordic Feminism, in: Suvi Keskinen, Pauline Stoltz and Diana Mulinari (eds.) Feminisms in the Nordic Region: Neoliberalism, Nationalism and Decolonial Critique, p. 155-176. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Arce, José and Julia Suárez-Krabbe (2018), Racism, Global Apartheid and Disobedient Mobilities: The Politics of Detention and Deportation in Europe and Denmark, in KULT: Racism in Denmark, vol. 15: 107-127.
  • Hassani, Amani (2023), Racialisation in a “raceless” nation: Muslims navigating Islamophobia in Denmark’s everyday life, in: Adrián Groplopo and Julia Suárez-Krabbe (eds.) Coloniality and Decolonisation in the Nordic Region, p. 37-50.
  • Mendes, Jan-Therese (2020), Black Death, Mourning and the Terror of Black Reproduction: Aborting the Black Muslim Self, Becoming the Assimilated Subject, in Souls vol. 22(1): 56-70.

Crip genealogies

  • Chen, M.Y., Kafer, A., Kim, E. & Minich, A. (2023). “Introduction: Crip Genealogies", In: M.Y. Chen, A. Kafer, E. Kim & A. Minich (eds.), Crip Genealogies. Durham & London: Duke University Press, pp. 1-57.
  • Christensen-Strynø, M.B., Frølunde, L. & Phillips, L.J. (Accepted/In press – 2023). Crip Empathography: Co-Creating a Graphic Novel about Parkinson’s Dance Experiences. Journal of Literary and Cultural Disbility Studies, 17:3, n/a.
  • Eriksen, C.B. & Hvidtfeldt, K. (2021). Vital Masculinities: Assemblages of Debility and Capacity in the Danish Lifestyle TV Show Real Men. NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 29:1, 50-62.

Queering the archive

  • Edenheim, Sara (2013). Lost and Never Found: The Queer Archive of Feelings and Its Historical Propriety. Differences, 24(3), 36–62 (23 pages)
  • Cvetkovich, Ann (2003). In the Archive of Lesbian Feelings. In An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (pp. 239–271). Duke University Press. (33 pages)
  • Carland, T. R., & Cvetkovich, A. (2013). Sharing an Archive of Feelings: A Conversation. Art Journal, 72(2), 70–77. (7 pages)

Classic Queer Theory

  • Michael Warner, Introduction to Fear of a Queer Planet
  • Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution”
  • Susan Stryker, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage” https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/28037
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