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S1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DP and online via Zoom.
About
Part of the Multi-disciplinary Gender Research Seminar Series.
*Please note that this seminar will be held in person in S1, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DP, and online via Zoom. If you would like to attend in-person, registration is not required. If you would like to attend online, please register your place in advance. Registration will close at 09.00 on Monday 9 February 2026.
Catherine Rottenberg is Head of Culture and Media and Professor in the School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. She works in the areas of feminist theory and feminist media studies, with a particular focus on neoliberal feminism and the politics of care. Her monographs include The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism (2018) and Performing Americanness: Race, Class, and Gender in Modern African-American and Jewish-American Literature (2008). She is also the co-author of The Care Manifesto (2020) and editor of This Is Not A Feminism Textbook! (2023) and Black Harlem and the Jewish Lower East Side: Narratives out of Time (2013).
Recent feminist scholarship — her own included — has documented the exponential rise in media discussions about menopause in the UK and how it is often cast in popular feminist terms as a process of 'empowerment'. In this talk, she will discuss how menopause has not only become a key site of popular neoliberal feminism but also one through which the contemporary struggle over how we (should) perceive gendered embodiment — particularly sex, gender, and bodily existence — is being played out.
The UCCGS Gender Research Seminars offer academics and graduate students an opportunity to present their work-in-progress to a multi-disciplinary audience interested in gender, in a friendly and informal atmosphere. Seminars are held on specified days during Michaelmas and Lent and everyone is welcome to attend.