Louka Maju Goetzke
Editor and Trainer
&
Research Associate and PhD Candidate
Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany
︎
N E W S
New Publication [German]
in the latest issue of Neue Narrative, this time on the overpowering trans lobby and dogmatism
N E X T
Conference Paper ︎11.05.23
“How do gender transitions unfold? A new materialist ethnography” ︎International Conference “Relational Perspectives on the Life Course“, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany
RESEARCH
I am a doctoral candidate in Sociology in the cooperative Research Training Group “Doing Transitions” of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, holding a fellowship by the German Research Foundation.
My Ph.D. project looks at gender transitions through the lens of new materialism. I am interested in how sex/gender transitions become evident as transitions and the differentiation from non-transitioning gender. Following theorist Susan Stryker, I understand gender transitions as non-linear movements across socially imposed boundaries, away from an unchosen starting place, the gender assigned at birth. Based on semi-structured interviews I conducted with people who transition in Germany, I aim at a situated description of the boundary drawing processes that shape gender transitions. For this, I make use of a new materialist methodology based on Karen Barad’s Agential Realism and Gilles Deleuze’s Difference-in-itself.
“The only way
to get outside the dualisms
is to be-between,
to pass between”
Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus
RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Feminist Theory and criticism of science
- Trans Studies
- Socio-material approaches / new materialisms
- Practices of differentiation, transformation, temporalities
- Subjectivity, embodiment, (post-)modern self formation
WRITING
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Monograph
Goetzke, Louka Maju (forthcoming). Werden statt Sein: VerUneindeutigung und positive Differenz. Hamburg: Marta Press
Articles (peer-reviewed)
Goetzke, Louka Maju (2022). Doing Gender Transitions. Geschlechterübergänge in neomaterialistischer Perspektive und ihr Potential für die Übergangsforschung. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik Beiheft 68/2022, Seite 82 - 97
Goetzke, Louka Maju, Müssig, Magdalena (2020). Die Covid-19-Pandemie bedroht alle. Geschützt werden nur einige. Femina Politica, Heft 2/2020: Politiken der Generativität und Reproduktive Rechte, Seite 121 - 122. [PDF]
Articles (non-peer reviewed)
Goetzke, Louka Maju, Schwertel, Tamara (2021). Neuer Materialismus. socialnet Lexikon. Bonn: socialnet. [online]
Goetzke, Louka Maju, Müssig, Magdalena (2020). Familismus in der Coronakrise. Soziologiemagazin, Blogreihe 8: Soziologische Impulse während Corona. [online]
Copy Editing
transcript Verlag
Appenroth, Max, Castro Varela, María (2019) Trans & Care: Trans Personen zwischen Selbstsorge, Fürsorge und Versorgung.
NON-ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
I regularely write journalistic articles for different media and am part of the editorial team of TONIC Magazin and Neue Narrative Magazin. In the latter, I publish my column Geschlechtergefühle (engl.: GenderFeelings) in each print edition.
Recent topics included
︎ Diversity is not an end in itself
︎ Why Money is a sexist Invention
︎ Toxic Masculinity: Is Masculinity unhealthy?
︎ Female Leadership: Does Leadership need a gender?
︎ Why you should have unisex Toilets at Work
︎ Toxic Positivity: When Optimism becomes cruel
︎ Commoning for an Economy without Competition
For a comprehensive list of journalistic publications, please check my torial profile.
TALKS
CONFERENCE PAPERS
24/02/2023: “If you are a woman through and through, you’re not supposed to be happy about being seen as a man” Or: What emotions and feelings do in gender transitions. Nordic Trans Studies Network Conference
“From Transgender Rage to Trans Joy. Trans Studies through Affective Lens”, Tampere University, Finland
27/10/2022: “Why would I change my body if I'm not suffering?” The Role of Distress and Desire in Gender Transitions. G22 National Conference for Gender Studies (Sweden), Karlstad University, Sweden
19/09/2022: Doing Gender Transitions: Eine neomaterialistische Perspektive auf Geschlechter in Bewegung. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), Bielefeld University
13/06/2022: Becoming what you ought to have always been: Nature/culture boundary-making in Gender Transitions. Mid-term Conference des ESA RN 33 (Women’s and Gender Studies), University Milano-Bicocca
15/03/2022: Übergangsforschung als Grenzziehungspraktiken anhand einer Studie zu Gender Transitionen. Paper at 28. DGfE Kongress ENT | GRENZ | UNGEN, 13-16 März 2022, University Bremen
20/09/2021: „Und dann konnte ich mich zum ersten Mal selbst so sehen.“ – Zur Rolle von Un_sichtbarkeiten in Gender Transitionen. Paper at 8. Jahrestagung der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Geschlechterforschung „Ambivalente Un_Sichtbarkeiten“
01/09/2021: Gender Transitions as a Sociotechnical Issue: A New Materialist Approach. Conference Track Science and Technology. 15th Conference of the European Sociological Association, Barcelona
21/07/2021: Crossing Boundaries: Gender Transitions as more-than-human-assemblages. Int. Conference “Frontiers of Humanity and Beyond: Towards new critical understandings of borders”, CHAM Centre for the Humanities Lissabon
21/05/2021: Towards fugitive subjectivities. Trans as a non-linear and deterritorialising movement. Conference „Creative Bodies – Creative Minds“, University of Graz
LECTURES & PAPERS non-peer-reviewed/by Invitation
26/05/2022: Gendertransitionen: Geschlechtliche Transformationsprozesse als materiell-diskursive Assemblage. 7. Jahrestagung der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (KWG), University of Graz
01/10/2021: Gender Transitions in Transformation: How do gender transitions emerge? A situated study with trans(itioning) subjects in Germany. Talk at the Interdisciplinary Online-Symposiums "Gender in Transformation Processes: Central and Southeast European Perspectives", University of Graz, Austria, University of Zadar and the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Split, Croatia
01/10/2021: Gender Transitions in Transformation: How do gender transitions emerge? A situated study with trans(itioning) subjects in Germany. Talk at the Interdisciplinary Online-Symposiums "Gender in Transformation Processes: Central and Southeast European Perspectives", University of Graz, Austria, University of Zadar and the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Split, Croatia
07/2017: Ein Recht auf mein Geschlecht: Über und gegen die Pathologisierung von Trans*-Personen – University of Freiburg
ORGANISED PANELS
26-28/05/2022: Zum Status von Materialität und materiellen Kulturen. Posthumane und neomaterialistische Perspektiven [EN: On the status of materiality and material cultures. Posthuman and neomaterialist perspectives],
7. Jahrestagung der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (KWG), University of Graz
15/03/2022: Doing Transitions: Herstellung und Verhandlung
von Grenzen und Zugehörigkeiten an Übergängen [EN: Doing Transitions: Producing and Negotiating Boundaries and Belongings in Transitions], 28. DGfE Kongress ENT | GRENZ | UNGEN, 13-16 März 2022, University of Bremen
POSTER PRESENTATIONS
12/2021: Doing Gender Transitions in neomaterialistischer Perspektivierung. Staying with the trouble. 25 Jahre Forschungsschwerpunkt Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung in Hessen
02/2020: Doing Gender Transitions, International conference „Doing Transitions in the Life Course”, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
10/2019: Queere Identitätskritik und positive Differenz, International conference “Categories in Flux”, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
OTHER TALKS ︎ MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
04/2022
Talking about the Temporality of Forming a Desire to Transition – for an mini episode of the Queer Lit Podcast by Lena Mattheis
12/2020
Interview on Neoliberal Promises, Individualism, Normalcy and Transformation – by Podcast Rote Brause, Neues Deutschland
10/2020
04/2016
02/2016
Panel discussion on The Future of Journalism: Zukunftsstimmen – Welche Geschichten schreibt Journalismus 2030? – Konferenzwoche Leuphana University Lüneburg
09/2014
Panel guest with Hans Werner Kilz, Bildung und Medien – talent! Junge Medienmacher
06/2013
TEACHING & TRAININGS
ACADEMIC TEACHING
Wie kommen Gendertransitionen zustande?
One-time seminar as part of the B.A. course “Trans*: Theorie/Kunst/Aktivismus”, Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, Austria, 17.12.2022
How Do Gender Transitions Unfold? – A New Materialist Approach
One-time Research Seminar, Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender, University of Brighton, UK, 22.09.2022
Becoming different (from each other)
Undergrad course, M.A. & B.A. Gender Studies, B.A. Sociology & Educational Sciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Summer Term 2022
Keywords: Theories of difference and differenciation, Doing Difference, Intersectionality, New Materialism, Relational Ontology, Difference-in-itself, Agential Realism, Relational Becoming
Doing Gender Transitions – Geschlecht in Bewegung
Guest lecture in a course “Introduction to the Sociology of Gender”, B.A. Sociology, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Summer Term 2022
New materialist approaches to transitions
Guest lecture in a team-taught seminar “Zu Übergängen forschen” together with Tamara Schwertel, M.A. Educational Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Summer Term 2021
Gender Transition: Eine Reise von einem Geschlecht ins andere?
Public evening lecture „Studium Generale: Doing Transitions – wie sich Übergänge im Lebenslauf herstellen“, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Summer Term 2021
Umgang mit Geschlechtervielfalt: Einführung in die Trans Studies
Undergrad course, B.A. Gender Studies, Sociology & Educational Sciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Winter Term 2020/21
Topics: Central notions in Trans Studies, (Historical) becoming of Trans Studies, Decolonial perspectives on gender and trans, Methodologies in Trans Studies
A New Materialist Methodology to Researching Gender Transitions
Guest lecture in a a team-taught seminar “Zu Übergängen forschen – Perspektiven und Methoden zur Erforschung von Übergängen im Lebenslauf”, M.A. Educational Sciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Summer Term 2020
TRAININGS & WORKSHOPS
I regularely give workshops and trainings on
- Gender and sexual diversity
- Sexism: How it works and how we unlearn it
- Gender bias in journalism and inclusive (visual) language
As I’m entering the last year of my Ph.D., I’m not available for trainings at the moment. If you are interested in a training taking place in late 2023, don’t hesitate to contact me. I facilitate in English, German and French, online and offline, and happily develop a training adjusted to your needs.
I’ve mostly facilitated workshops and trainings for journalists, NGOs and youth work projects such as:
Ringier AG, BLICK, Switzerland | Heinrich Böll Foundation, Germany | re:publica Conference, Germany | Deutsch-türkische Jugendbrücke, Turkey & Germany | Zinefest Berlin, Germany | Global Education Digital Youth Work Project, Turkey & Germany | Z2X – Das Festival der Neuen Visionäre – Die ZEIT, Germany | Gendered Intelligence, UK | Solijugend, Germany | Grüne Jugend, Germany |
Ringier AG, BLICK, Switzerland | Heinrich Böll Foundation, Germany | re:publica Conference, Germany | Deutsch-türkische Jugendbrücke, Turkey & Germany | Zinefest Berlin, Germany | Global Education Digital Youth Work Project, Turkey & Germany | Z2X – Das Festival der Neuen Visionäre – Die ZEIT, Germany | Gendered Intelligence, UK | Solijugend, Germany | Grüne Jugend, Germany |