What's the use?
Subtitle: on the uses of use
By: Sara Ahmed
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
Published: 2019
Language: eng
Number of pages: 281
ISBN-13: 9781478005841; 9781478006503; 9781478007210
Copyright date: 2019
Subjects: Sociological aspects; Higher Education; Utilitarianism; Social aspects; Philosophy; Queer theory; Universities and colleges
Description: "In What's the Use? Sara Ahmed continues the work she began in The Promise of Happiness and Willful Subjects by taking up a single word--in this case, use--and following it around. She shows how use became associated with life and strength in nineteenth century biological and social thought and considers how utilitarianism offered a set of educational techniques for shaping individuals by directing them toward useful ends. Ahmed also explores how spaces become restricted to some uses and users with specific reference to universities. She notes, however, the potential for queer use: how things can be used in ways that were not intended or by those for whom they were not intended. Ahmed posits queer use as way of reanimating the project of diversity work as the ordinary and painstaking work of opening up institutions to those who have historically been excluded from them"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: A useful archive; title: Using things; title: The biology of use and disuse; title: Use as technique; title: Use and the university; title: Queer use.