Karen Barad

Karen Barad
Born Karen Michelle Barad
(1956-04-29) 29 April 1956
Alma mater Stony Brook University
Notable work Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning
Era Contemporary philosophy
Region Western philosophy
School Feminism
Institutions University of California, Santa Cruz
Main interests
Theoretical physics, feminist theory

Karen Michelle Barad (born 29 April 1956),[1] is an American feminist theorist, known particularly for her theory of agential realism. She is currently Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz.[2] She is the author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.[3][4] Her research topics include feminist theory, physics, twentieth-century continental philosophy, epistemology, ontology, philosophy of physics, cultural studies of science, and feminist science studies.

Barad earned her doctorate in theoretical physics at Stony Brook University. Her dissertation presented computational methods for quantifying properties of quarks, and other fermions, and in the framework of lattice gauge theory.

Agential realism

According to Barad's theory of agential realism, the world is composed of phenomena, which are "the ontological inseparability of intra-acting agencies". Intra-action, a neologism introduced by Barad, signals an important challenge to individualist metaphysics. For Barad, things or objects do not precede their interaction, rather, 'objects' emerge through particular intra-actions. Thus, apparatuses, which produce phenomena, are not assemblages of humans and nonhumans (as in actor-network theory). Rather, they are the condition of possibility of 'humans' and 'non-humans', not merely as ideational concepts, but in their materiality. Apparatuses are 'material-discursive' in that they produce determinate meanings and material beings while simultaneously excluding the production of others. What it means to matter is therefore always material-discursive. Barad takes her inspiration from physicist Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum physics. Barad's agential realism is at once an epistemology (theory of knowing), an ontology (theory of being), and an ethics. Barad coins the term onto-epistemology. Because specific practices of mattering have ethical consequences, excluding other kinds of mattering, onto-epistemological practices are always in turn onto-ethico-epistemological.

Much of Barad's scholarly work has revolved around her concept of "agential realism," and her theories hold importance for many academic fields, including science studies, STS (Science, Technology, and Society), feminist technoscience, philosophy of science, feminist theory, and, of course, physics. In addition to Bohr, her work draws a great deal on the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, as demonstrated in her influential article in the feminist journal differences, "Getting Real: Technoscientific Practices and the Materialization of Reality." Barad's training is actually in theoretical physics, and her 2007 book, Meeting the Universe Halfway, includes a chapter that contains an original discovery in theoretical physics, which is largely unheard of in books that are usually categorized as 'gender studies' or 'cultural theory' books. In this book, Barad also argues that 'agential realism,' is useful to the analysis of literature, social inequalities, and many other things. This claim is based on the fact that Barad's agential realism is a way of understanding the politics, ethics, and agencies of any act of observation, and indeed any kind of knowledge practice. According to Barad, the deeply connected way that everything is entangled with everything else means that any act of observation makes a "cut" between what is included and excluded from what is being considered. Nothing is inherently separate from anything else, but separations are temporarily enacted so one can examine something long enough to gain knowledge about it. This view of knowledge provides a framework for thinking about how culture and habits of thought can make some things visible and other things easier to ignore or to never see. For this reason, according to Barad, agential realism is useful for any kind of feminist analysis, even if the connection to science is not apparent.

Barad's framework makes several other arguments, and some of them are part of larger trends in fields such as science studies and feminist technoscience (all can be found in her 2007 book, Meeting the Universe Halfway):

These points on science, agency, ethics, and knowledge reveal that Barad's work is similar to the projects of other science studies scholars such as Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Andrew Pickering, and Evelyn Fox Keller.

Karen Barad is currently at the University of California Santa Cruz. According to her University web page, "Karen Barad is Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Her Ph.D. is in theoretical particle physics. She held a tenured appointment in a physics department before moving into more interdisciplinary spaces. She is the author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Duke University Press, 2007) and numerous articles in the fields of physics, philosophy, science studies, poststructuralist theory, and feminist theory. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Hughes Foundation, the Irvine Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is the Co-Director of the Science & Justice Graduate Training Program at UCSC."

Selected bibliography

Books

German
English

Chapters in books

German
English

Journal articles

See also

References

  1. "Barad, Karen Michelle". Library of Congress. Retrieved 20 February 2015. (Karen Barad) data view (theoretical physicist; b. Apr. 29, 1956)
  2. "Feminist Studies: Karen Barad". University of California, Santa Cruz.
  3. Barad, Karen (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822339175.
  4. "Activities: matterrealities (workshop), Karen Barad @ Lancaster, 5-7 November 2007, with art by Fiona Jane Candy, Paul Coulton, Irene Janze, Jennifer Sheridan". Palcom.

External links

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