Liz Kinnamon
About Liz Kinnamon
Liz Kinnamon works at the intersection of Marxist feminism, attention studies, and critical theory. Their dissertation, "Playing Attention: Marxism, Feminism, and the Politics of Presence," tracks the concept of attention from a materialist perspective to push back against presentist and technologically deterministic views of the so-called attention crisis in the US. The project looks at a variety of attention techniques from Silicon Valley mindfulness to second wave feminist Consciousness Raising to Pauline Oliveros' experimental sound exercises. The first publication from their dissertation reads the Silicon Valley mindfulness movement alongside Foucault's Care of the Self, and is featured in the special issue of Women & Performance "Living Labor: Marxism and Performance Studies."
They are currently working to publish, with Carol Giardina, The Consciousness-Raising Correspondence, 1968-69, a collection of letters written between founding members of Women's Liberation when the movement was first cohering in the United States. The letters show the effervescent thinking, connection, and effort involved in developing some of the movement's basic theories — from "the personal is poltiical" to the practice of Consciousness Raising.
Their next book project is a history of second-wave feminist Consciousness Raising.
They are the former managing editor of Feminist Formations—the founding journal of the National Women’s Studies Association—an advisory board member of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, an editorial board member of Les Figues Press, and a member of the Monique Wittig scholarship committee. They are also a member of the community-based Women's Studies Advisory Council (WOSAC).
Research Interests: Gender and sexuality studies; the history of racial capitalism; psychoanalysis; trans, queer, and feminist theory; attention and perception; Marxism; Science and Technology Studies; performance studies; affect theory; social movements
2019-2020, Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship
2019-2020, AAUW Dissertation Completion Fellowship (Declined)
2018, Mary Lily research grant, Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, Duke University
2016, Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship
2016, Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry, Graduate Fellowship
Public Scholarship:
- United States v. Scott Daniel Warren, The New Inquiry (June 2019)
- An Interview with Nancy K. Miller for her new book My Brilliant Friends at Bookforum
- "Contextomy," for Brave, Beautiful Outlaws: The Photographs of Donna Gottschalk at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (October 2018)
- Desire is Surplus Energy: "I Love Dick" between Text and TV, Los Angeles Review of Books (September 2017)
- Elegant Uprooted Things: Jack Spicer, California, and Psychoanalysis, Open Space (October 2016)
- The Male Sentimental, Mixed Feelings (May 2016)
- Madness, SCUM Manifesto, and Valerie Solanas—history's most famous lipstick misandrist, BOMB Magazine (January 2015)
Degree(s)
MA, Gender & Women's Studies, University of Arizona
BA, Women's Studies, University of Georgia
Research Interests
Gender and sexuality studies; the history of racial capitalism; psychoanalysis; trans, queer, and feminist theory; attention and perception; Marxism; Science and Technology Studies; performance studies; affect theory; social movements
Courses Taught
GWS 487: Feminist Interpretations of Health
GWS 386: Race/Gender: Genealogies, Formations, Poilitics
GWS 200: Women and Western Culture
GWS 260: Sex, Gender, and Technology
GWS 150: Sex, Health, and AIDS