Editors’ Note

Abstract

Editors’ Note Kimberly M. Jew, Wanda S. Pillow, and Darius Bost A little over twenty years ago, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, presented “Panopticon: An Art Spectacular.” This newsworthy exhibit featured an array of art pieces designed to attract and surprise the patrons’ all-seeing eyes, with paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts chairs arranged everywhere—from floor-to-ceiling, in non-traditional visual patterns. The essence of a Frontiers general volume embraces the dynamism and immediacy of the artistic panopticon, inviting readers to experience a diversity of feminist and gendered-centered methods, theories, and forms of expression. The essays in this volume demonstrate the discursive nature of women’s and gender studies, revealing the multiple and interactive layers of inquiry by which feminist scholarship emerges. Just as an ink rendering might speak to a designer chair, which also speaks to an abstract sculpture, these diverse essays engage in the critical conversations that define today’s past and emerging models of feminist scholarship. Of note, these essays further contribute to a darker Foucauldian interpretation of the panopticon as a tool of pervasive institutional power and surveillance. Though diverse in scope, these texts are firmly united in their commitment to exposing societal inequities and forms of intersectional oppression. They ask us to not only see everything but to see critically. This general volume is divided among three sections. The first section explores Audre Lorde’s groundbreaking work on Black, lesbian, and women’s studies through the lens of labor. The practice of labor manifests in multiple forms, including paid or unpaid, domestic or worldly, emotionally felt or object-driven, local or world changing. The two essays on Lorde’s work explore how contrasting forms of labor thread through women’s lives and experiences. In “Audre Lorde, Labor Theorist: Rethinking Integrity within Late Capitalism,” Kristina Popiel approaches Audre Lorde’s scholarship and writings through the framework of labor theory. She argues that Lorde viewed the social construction of “woman” as intimately connected to work, which [End Page xi] potential leads to “a radical notion of wholeness that is based in the fullness of women’s labor (often social justice labor).” In “Metabolize Hate or Die of It: Lorde, Labor, and Critical Affect Theory,” Molly Benitez explores affect theory in light of the physical experiences and legacies of women and queer identities of color. This essay seeks to put Lorde’s theory of metabolization “in conversation with Judith Butler’s theory of performativity to analyze ‘the affects of labor’—the stress, trauma, and emotions.” Benitez offers a critique of capitalism’s oppressive methods, demonstrating how marginalized subjects are forced to meet capitalism’s demands. The second section of this volume presents two essays that focus on global feminist critiques, suggesting an expansive, and yet connective, vision of feminist conversations beyond the United States. In “Domestic Touchpoints between British and Chinese Women’s Art,” Virginia Yiqing Yang and Adrienne Evans extend the conversation about women’s lives, domesticity, and labor by seeking transcultural “touchpoints” among British and Chinese artists. The authors focus their comparative examination on how artists have approached “women’s work” through creative explorations of distraction, time, absurdity, and ordinariness. In “Gadji Feminism(s) in Serbia: Racial Privilege and ‘Intersectional’ Solidarity in an Eastern European Semiperiphery,” Ivana Pražić and Ana Vilenica discuss the work of Jelena Savić, who they note as “the only Romani critical race theoretician, poet, and decolonial activist in Serbia,” one who calls “for unpacking the colonial legacy and whiteness behind the feminist politics.” In their essay, they detail Savić’s sharp critique of gadji (non-Roma and conciliatory Roma) feminism and its savior approach to Roma women, an approach that typically ignores the legacy of racism and sexism that faces their community. The third section of this volume expands upon feminist concepts of time, imaginaries, women’s politics, and reproductive rights. First, in “Specter(s) of Care: A Symposium on Midwifery, Relationality, and Reproductive Justice To-Come,” Rodante van der Waal offers readers the opportunity to consider how the Platonic symposium and the legacy of Socrates’ mother’s labor as a midwife combine to house a dramatic commentary on midwives and the lack of relational...