Genealogies and Conceptual Belonging

Eike Marten is a postdoctoral researcher within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany.

• Contents (Final)AcknowledgementsIntroduction 1Part I Stories at WorkMethodological Interlude I 53Diversity Stories 64A (Feminist) Counter-Narrative: The Figure of Appropriation as a Story-Teller 118Summary: Commonalities 159Part II An/other Story: Telling Dis/continuous GenealogiesMethodological Interlude II 165Judith Butler: The Question of Gender and Sexual Difference 183Audre Lorde: Towards Relating across Differences 235Futures and Fusions – Seeking beyond History 277Conclusion 297

Interrupting the feminist consensus that "diversity" is the brand name for institutional complicities, Eike Marten offers a compelling re-engagement with the term in the context of German Gender Studies. Hers is not a defense of any of the ways that "diversity" is bound to the management of difference but a creative and serious encounter with the problems it sets forth, the histories it occludes, and the futures crafted in and against its name. GENEALOGIES AND CONCEPTUAL BELONGING adds enormously to ongoing deliberations on the university, neoliberalism, and the possibilities and limits of academic critique.Robyn Wiegman, Literature and Women's Studies, Duke UniversityDiversity has become a key term in many institutional settings and occupies a central place in a variety of political discourses. Yet what we mean when we use the language of diversity is as diverse as the stories we tell each other about the nature of diversity and the origins of diversity politics. Eike Marten’s study intends to shed light on what we are doing when we use the language of diversity and how this shapes our political strategies in the present as much as it shapes the horizon of our future. A timely intervention in an era of increased hostility. Sabine Hark, Director of The Center for Interdisciplinary Women's and Gender's Studies at the Technical University of Berlin, GermanyMarten insightfully captures the increasing popularity of diversity terminology in Germany, confronting us to challenge depoliticization of difference and economization of the other. However, rather than taking sides in the diversity versus gender debate, Genealogies and Conceptual Belonging explores new ways to relate across differences. Highly recommended for everyone committed to antiracist, feminist ethics and politics. Nikita Dhawan, Professor of Political Theory and Gender Studies, University of Innsbruck