Cefai, Sarah. 2018. 'Stupid in the Moment: Excavating the Patriarchal Nonconscious of Humiliation'. In: Affect & Social Media #4. University of East London, United Kingdom 7 November 2018. [Conference or Workshop Item]

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Abstract or Description

Approaching humiliation as an everyday structure of feeling, this talk links humiliation’s affective and discursive process of articulation to the nonconscious dynamics of a fully mediated—‘teletechnological’ (Clough 2000)—milieu. Stupidity, that culminates in the form of foolishness (having been duped, tricked, played, fooled) and the realisation of one’s being stupid (being made to look the fool), is the mechanism by which humiliation brings one’s status down. This paper explores the idea that being “stupid in the moment,” particularly as a failure to understand and respond to “what is going on,” is less a personal failing that is haphazardly realised or felt, and more a patterned response of non-response that iterates the epistemological shortcomings of patriarchal relations. By linking the “silence” of non-response to the aesthetics of humiliation, this talk hopes to politicise the social significance of humiliation, particularly, the affective anchoring of humiliation in the patriarchal social relations—in their automated, nonconscious capacities—that humiliation brings into play.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Related URLs:	Organisation Organisation
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Media, Communications and Cultural Studies
Dates:	Date Event 7 November 2018 Completed
Event Location:	University of East London, United Kingdom
Date range:	7 November 2018
Item ID:	32658
Date Deposited:	23 Nov 2022 09:31
Last Modified:	23 Nov 2022 09:31
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/32658

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