Catherine Rottenberg is a Professor of Media, Communications, and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research investigates the convergence of feminism and neoliberalism, as well as the politics of care. Catherine’s full profile can be found here.

Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?

That is a difficult question both because I see so much exciting research being published on feminism and because I am an interdisciplinary scholar so don’t have one field! I would say that, for me, some of the most interesting research at the moment involves thinking about transnational decolonial feminist solidarities; the potential as well as limitations of feminist rage in a moment of anti-gender crusades; and a theory and practice of anti-fascist feminist—in fact, I am part of a collective drafting an anti-fascist feminist manifesto!

How has the way you understand the world and feminism changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?

Feminism for me began as a kind of inarticulate rebellion — against restrictive norms, against people telling me what I should want or how I should live my life. I grew up in New York City, and I started marching on Washington in my early teens; it was here, in these political mobilisations, that I found my feminist community. It wasn’t until I reached university that I encountered feminist theory as such, and that encounter very literally changed my entire career trajectory. I was studying biology at the time, planning to become a medical doctor. But in my second year of my undergraduate studies, I took a class — Introduction to Embryology — with Professor Anne Fausto-Sterling, a very well-known feminist biologist and thinker. It was the exposure to Fausto-Sterling’s critical feminist perspective on sex that changed the course of my life. I never did become a scientist — and instead went on to study literature and critical theory. 

Over the years, I have moved toward feminist media studies and become increasingly interested in political economic analyses.  It has been my many teachers, my mentors, my colleagues, my fellow activists, and my students who have influenced and changed my understanding of feminism and the world.  My thinking continues to be shaped by my many interlocutors. Though, if pushed comes to shove, I would probably say that the one person who has most influenced and prompted the most significant shifts in my thinking has been Judith Butler, who was (and continues to be) my mentor. Both their notion of gender performativity and their notion of precariousness have profoundly shaped the way I approach the world as a political activist and feminist thinker.

In The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism and subsequent work, you analyse the first Trump presidency as deeply damaging to women’s rights while also reshaping feminist politics. How do you think current events and rising authoritarian tendencies are reshaping women’s rights and feminism?

I think the answer to that is quite clear. On the one hand, we see how rising authoritarian tendencies are dismantling hard-won feminist and LGBTQI successes — the overturning of Roe versus Wade, the onslaught of anti-trans legislation and the targeting of trans people, alongside the mainstreaming of the........

© E-International