This event is part of the AWARE Roundtable — “Sexual autonomy, free of coercion!” series.

Why speak against autonomy? Why question freedom, empowerment, identity claims, calls for inclusion, or demands for recognition? And why especially challenge calls for embodied autonomy?

Taking a cue from a number of recent films critiquing “autonomy” and the desire for self-assertion, this talk suggests an alternative interruption of imposition, restraint, and repression.

Focusing on the relationship between autonomy and coercion (and how they constitute one another), this discussion opens a space to rethink friendship, dependency, and other forms of heteronomy.

Some of the films to be considered include: Finding Nemo, By Hook or By Crook, Boys Don’t Cry, Brokeback Mountain, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Charlotte’s Web, Solos, Female Games, Bugis Street, Drifting Flowers, and Happy Times.

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Sept 26, 2012, Wednesday

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: AWARE Centre (AWARE Centre, Blk 5 Dover Crescent #01-22)

Click here to register for this event.

About the speaker:

Brian Bergen-Aurand is Assistant Professor of English at Nanyang Technological University, where he teaches Film, Ethics, and Embodiment. He also serves on the Film Studies coordinating committee and as a member of the Gender & Sexuality Studies steering committee. He has served as the Gender and Sexuality editor of Clamor Magazine and on the editorial board of the journal Gender on Our Minds. Since 1995, he has written and presented more than fifty essays, articles, reviews, and papers on embodiment and ethics and is currently working on two books: We Other Singaporeans and The Encyclopedia of Queer Cinema.