MaJaColloquium with Emad Garivani: Materiality and Nomadic Feminism in the Iranian Women’s Movement

On 28 October 2026, we will open this semester’s MaJaC colloquium with a presentation by Emad Garivani on the topic Materiality and Nomadic Feminism in the Iranian Women’s Movement. Emad Garivani is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Media Studies (IfM) at RUB.

Abstract:
Feminist desire or sheer volition cannot fully turn into political subjectivity. This desire has to be actualised as political power through corporeal, spatial and objectual material constraints. The nomadic relationality of Iranian feminists operationalises the
affordances and disaffordances of spaces and objects. As Braidotti (2011) puts it: “Embodied materialism is my political ontology.” Applying this material ontology and anti-essentialist lens, I map the processes of feminist political resistance by Woman, Life, Freedom subjects against the state’s coercive forces through natural sciences. Continuum mechanics, hydraulics and thermodynamics are employed as mapping languages to define these processes of resistance as nomad science. For example, burning hijabs, fighting a riot police water cannon, and using the slipperiness of silk are practices where this nomad science is actualised.

The event will start at 6:15 p.m., as usual.

Important : Starting this semester, the event will be held in GD 03/141 (building GD floor 03 room 141). The room is wheelchair accessible.

Presentations and discussions will be conducted in spoken English.

If you have any questions about the MaJaC colloquium, please feel free to contact us by email at: maximiliane.brand@rub.de