Stars in Their Eyes: 19th-Century Spiritualism and Female Proto-Surrealism

This lecture will introduce some of the radical cultural and scientific shifts that took place in the US, Europe and the UK that resulted in groups of women who were interested in Spiritualism coming together to create ar...

This Lecture will discuss Zombie cultures from a feminist perspective and ask what the figure of the Zombie can add to contemporary feminism both as a cultural metaphor and as instigator of preparedness. As illustrated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and their “Zombie Prepa...

Taking stuff and stuffness as its theme, this talk considers the way stuff sits at the edges of our attention and requires a kind of peripheral gaze; looked at too closely, its sense of stuffness slips. Yet it is precisely stuff’s slippery nature that provides a kind of joyful resistance, eluding...

Our Halloween Special - a curated selection of past lectures that have everything to do with the witchy, witchcraft and occultism! 4 lectures for £35 - With a whole month to watch, so plenty of time to fill your boots with some spooky academia in the run up to the creepiest time of the year.

🪄 E...

Staged Bodies: Performativity In Feminist Photography

Investigating the parallel of performing for a camera as connected to quotidian performances in systemic and ideological frameworks, female artists have been turning to the photographic to examine, at large, the ways in which we perform. The ...

Black {Gendered} Space Time: From The Heavens to Outer Space

This lecture takes roots/routes from Black Futurism via the lens of Black Gendered Space Time to explore the artistic and cultural works of Janelle Monae and Missy Elliot. We will orbit around the writings of the Jamaican cultural theo...

What can pole dancing teach tech companies about content governance?

Dr Carolina Are, (a.k.a. @bloggeronpole) is a London-based Italian researcher, activist and blogger with a PhD in content moderation who has received direct apologies from Instagram about shadowbanning and led international...

This lecture will introduce or reintroduce the Gothic, bringing up common aspects and tropes of the genre and how they relate to and influence our views of women. Using these tropes as a starting point for exploration, we will discuss how viewing women under this myopic lens not only enacts and c...

Where do Flaws Come From?: Bellies, Bodies and the Social Construction of Imperfection

In the cultural zeitgeist, our bodies are problematised. They are made to shrink, criticised for changing (especially for putting on weight), and naturally occurring parts of our bodies are deemed something to...

Oppositional Gaze: Black Feminist Photography as Feminist Resistance

bell hooks, celebrated author, theorist, educator, and social critic, used the term ‘oppositional gaze’ to describe the resistant strategies Black Women and Queer imagemakers employ to challenge the colonial and patriarchal gaz...

This lecture unpacks the artistic legacy and groundbreaking work of visionary Cuban Artist Ana Mendieta and her iconic Silueta series, where she merged the human form with the earth itself. It will explore Mendieta's visionary approach to artmaking, as well as her lasting impact in the feminist ...

On Art And Motherhood: The Construction Of Perfection And Its Feminist Subversion With Hettie Judah

From the selfless Virgin Mary, to the uncomplaining 'Angel in the House' through to the flawless mother-as-consumer promoted by advertisers in the 20th century, representations of motherhood have ...

Breaking As Making: Women Artists Employing Breaking, Violence And Destruction

‘People find it quite weird that women make violent work, or work that uses violence. But we have as much right to it as anyone else.’ - Cornelia Parker

From Doris Salcedo to Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramović to C...

In myths and fairytales weaving and spinning are often performed by women. The Greek Metis, and the Morai, the Roman Texere and the Hindu Maya are amongst many female personifications connected to weaving the cloth of the world, along with the archetypal old crone, who is often depicted as being ...

As a child, Nicola Hill’s daughter suffered from epilepsy, both grande and petite-mal seizures. Her description of the amazing colours she saw during these episodes and the draconian drug regime she initially underwent prompted her to begin research into the history and treatment of epilepsy…

I...

The hybrid and the monster are ideal symbols of feminist resistance. In contrast to modern ideas of ‘perfection’, they are constantly becoming: never finite or complete. Endlessly transforming and changing, they confront society with the impossible, challenging the restrictions imposed by Capital...

In urban centres across the UK, once-thriving pockets of grassroots LGBTQ+ and feminist activism have been all but eradicated, replaced with generic new-build apartments, artisanal bakeries, and craft beer pubs aplenty. These radical spaces may be barely perceptible today – either demolished, red...

Far more than the sum of its parts (thread, fabric, notions), fashion reflects our tastes and values, materialises those of the societies in which we live, and renders unruly, fleshy, ‘pre-cultural’ bodies suitable for navigating public life. For women in the West, the slender beauty ideal has si...

With their intricate knowledge of traditions and craft, women stand at the forefront of contemporary Kazakhstan, preserving the collective consciousness and rebirthing long-forgotten traditions. By shifting away from the Western gaze, we can acknowledge the essential role that women have played a...

Anatomical Venuses--beautiful, life-sized wax women reclining on velvet cushions with Venetian glass eyes, strings of pearls, and golden tiaras crowning their real human hair-- were created in 18th-century Florence to teach the general public about the mysteries of the female body. They also taci...

Intimate Ecologies: A Black Feminist Erotics for Interspecies Un/Worlding

This talk draws on a richly textured landscape of Black feminist; queer and Native theory; visual cultures; postnatural studies and decolonial environmental humanities. Participants will be invited to re-think binary subje...

THE ANIMATION OF MARY BLAIR: A FEMINIST'S GUIDE TO DISNEY
Disney films have historically been built of images of women - those iconic, if deeply problematic Disney Princesses. Yet the animation world has historically been overwhelmingly male dominated, and when women have fought their way into th...

Vogue magazine is considered the original fashion bible, the bastion of ultimate mode… it has burnt itself onto our cultural consciousness. Uncontested market leader for over a century and million-dollar money machine, it has made its name selling to women. And yet Vogue has often disparaged wome...

Black female artists made some of the most essential contributions to the Western Canon in the 20th Century - so why is it that their work has not been recognised? And how can we start acknowledging their contributions in the world today?

Join Dr. Sheree Mack for her incredible lecture that aims...

Why were there so many women involved in the spirit photography and spirit mediumship movement?

Join guest lecturer Lucy Cade to explore the mysterious origins of spirit photography and mediumship, which rose to popularity across Britain and the US during the Industrial period of the mid to late...

When we think about the academic institution, where is the witch? Equally, when we think about the witch, where is the academic institution? And why is it that although cultural representations of witches “coming into” their witching frequently imagine this initiation happening in the classroom, ...

Join us as we welcome Dr Noam Yadin Evron to discuss some of the most mysterious little objects in history - Medieval Vulva Badges!

In the last 200 years, thousands of Medieval badges have been discovered along the rivers of England, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. These badges, dated to ...

Join The Feminist Lecture Program for a short history of modern feminist publishing, putting the body into spaces of knowledge production.

This lecture looks at some methods involved in running a feminist, queer, disabled-led publishing programme, and unpacks what it means to take pleasure se...

Join guest lecturers Holly Isard & Jo Harrison to explore reproductive labour and breastfeeding as work and for an extensive Q&A discussion.

"In a context of severe time poverty, double-cup, hands-free pumps are considered the most desirable, as they permit one to express milk from both breasts ...

The wonderful Parumveer Walia returns to The Feminist Lecture Program for a study of the Abject as a psycho-social space and its connections to feminism.

Tate Modern defines the Abject as that which “transgresses and threatens our sense of cleanliness and propriety, particularly referencing the ...

FLP welcomes back the incredible Eleanor Medhurst. Join her as she unpicks the history and significance of lesbian fashion over the last 200 years. This is a winding story - one that can’t be easily pinned down. So much of lesbian history has been deliberately forgotten or misremembered, but plac...

Endometriosis Activism: Making the Invisible Visible

Endometriosis is dubbed “the invisible illness”. This nickname has double meaning – on the one hand, it refers to invisibility in the medical sense (endometriosis is difficult to recognize and diagnose); on the other hand, it refers to the soc...

Hysterical Bodies: Gender, Medicine & Wandering Uteruses

This session will explore one of the strangest theories in western medical history; ‘The Wandering Uterus Theory’, its almost unbelievable origins, and its ongoing complicity in the subjugated status of the female body in Western Medicine....

This practical drawing and painting session will begin with a short talk exploring Maria’s life and work by our tutor Luisa, before exploring how to recreate elements of her compositions and what we can learn from her dynamic and bold use of colour.

A self-taught artist whose work comprised no f...

Almost ubiquitous in Pop culture, the visual stereotype of the witch essentially boils down to 'Young Sexy Witch' or 'Old Crone', we even see these tropes reflected in costume stores each year! But where did this image of the witch come from? How did it evolve? Did it accumulate gradually over ti...

Join The Feminist Lecture Program for a lecture celebrating the life and works of Artemisia Gentileschi!
Artemisia. The woman who reinvented the Baroque, student of Caravaggio? Rape Survivor, Mother, Paintress to Kings and Queens, inspiration to seemingly all who know her work and story. Subject ...

Join Anna Titov as she explores the fascinating links between socio-political climates, and witchcraft...
Witchcraft can be interpreted as a practice that enables the creation of an “otherworld”, a liminal space that one can enter or embody in order to perform manipulative actions through the fo...

Wander under the eaves of a 11th or 12th century Castle, Church or Cathedral, and one might expect to see gargoyles, beautiful gothic architecture, or even a grotesque or two. What most people probably WOULDN'T expect to see, is a figurine of a screaming woman holding her enormous vagina wide ope...

Join FLP Director Luisa-Maria MacCormack for a lecture that explores the intersection between Feminism and Fairy Tales. The session will comprise an in depth examination of what makes a fairy tale- and crucially, what makes them so female-centric.

We will examine the history and structure of fai...

Join FLP Director Luisa-Maria MacCormack as she delves into the fantastic history of Soft Sculpture! From Eileen Agar to heavy hitters like Dorothea Tanning and Louise Bourgeois, Faith Ringgold, Lee Bul and Yayoi Kusama. This session will explore the work of some of the most amazing soft sculptur...

Join FLP founder Luisa-Maria MacCormack as she guides you through a Feminist History of our interspecies friendship with Fungi, examining the history of Foraging, Cooking, Growing, Researching and even the life cycles of Fungi themselves through a feminist lens. We will explore cutting edge theor...