“Blasphemic Reading Soirées” is a nomadic platform for contemporary feminism that wants to make (queer) feminist texts accessible and foster debates. For each soirée a text is chosen to be read together, in a space that corresponds to the contents of the text. As we couldn't meet in person due to the COVID-19-pandemic, we decided to go digital:

For the “Blasphemic Reading Soirées”, meeting in actual physical spaces is crucial. The spaces we select to read in, and the texts we select for our discussions always correspond. We think about the performance of our reading bodies and minds in those spaces when we prepare. As the circumstances push people to go digital, we are aware that reading together online can only be a foul compromise for us, but one we are willing to take during these circumstances.

For the 12th edition of Blasphemic Reading Soirées, we therefore feel the need to zoom in on crucial transformations of issues of labour and want to discuss digital consumer labour – the kind of work many of us do around the clock for free. When on social media, we comment on our friends postings, we help each other out – especially now – or we merely click and scroll. By doing all of the above, we produce data for free that are mined by others: unemployment does not equate underemployment, especially not now. Kylie Jarrett’s book “Feminism, Labour und Digital Media. The Digital Housewife” offers us a perspective on our life with digital media. She uses the term of the “digital housewife” to argue for a connection between the unpaid labour that all of us do willingly online and housework, which has been discussed by feminist theory since decades.

It might be a compromise to meet you online, but at least we could find the perfect accomplice for our online-soirée: artist and art mediator Daniela Brugger will join in for the discussion. In her practice, Daniela has repeatedly worked with the issue of social exclusion in digital spaces and she recently developed a workshop for digital self-defense – with artistic means.

Concept and Organization: Miriam Coretta Schulte, Jonas Gillmann, Saskia Läubli, Katharina Brandl

www.blasphemicreadings.com