The Imaginary Institution of the University
Sexual Politics in the Neoliberal Academy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3775157 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anna Hush (UNSW Sydney) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 136-150 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Angelaki (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0969-725X • E-ISSN: 1469-2899 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0969725x.2019.1635833 |
| OpenAlex | W2958737396 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 10 |
This paper considers the relationship between institutions and the “sexual imaginary,” understood as the set of affective and imaginative resources that produce certain forms of sexual subjectivity. Drawing on the work of Cornelius Castoriadis and Moira Gatens, I argue that institutions play an important role in shaping sexual imaginaries. Historically, institutions have been sites in which unjust sexual norms (for example, norms of masculine sexual dominance and entitlement) have been reinforced and legitimized. I analyse the growing trend of consent education at Australian universities to explore how institutions may also represent potential sites for contesting and reimagining these norms. Feminist critiques of consent suggest that consent education may in fact reproduce a narrow and conservative vision of sexuality, one that aligns with the neoliberal politics of the contemporary university. This paper contributes to these critiques by exploring how both the neoliberal university and consent theory are premised on a distorted vision of the subject as a rational, disembodied being. I argue that transforming dominant sexual imaginaries requires recognizing and interrogating both how desire permeates institutional spaces and the role of desire in ethical sexual relations
Dominance (genetics · Entitlement (fair division · Epistemology · Human sexuality · Institution · Psychoanalysis · Social science · Sociology · Subject (documents · Subjectivity · The Imaginary · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Psychology · Gender Studies
Power, privilege, and obverse apprenticeship
MeToo, Cisheteropatriarchy and LGBTQ+ Sexual Violence on Campus
Sexual Fluency
Contesting Populist Imaginaries in European Higher Education
The analytical potential of ‘affective imaginaries’ in higher education research
Reading the Sexual Economy of Academic Freedom with Sarah Kofman and Jacques Derrida
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |