Contribution short abstract:

In this paper, I propose to re-member a writing technology from the feminist toolbox to shift epistemo-ontological grounds: interpunction.

Contribution long abstract:

A baseline of feminist epistemologies is the close connection between words and worlds. Words are not tools to describe and analyze worlds, words – especially metaphors – bring worlds into existence. Choosing a metaphor over another, verbs over nouns, poems over academic parlance became popular strategies to intervene into the textosterone (how Mary Ellen S. Capek called it once) of scientific production. In this paper, I would like to follow this thread in taking up the panel’s question of “how feminist approaches can help to un-write [or maybe rather re-write?] the narratives of our times?” To do so, I propose to re-member another writing technology from the feminist toolbox: interpunction. Feminists of the 1970s and 1980s had perfected the use of the potentialities of a small line such as the hyphen or a slash to shift epistemo-ontological grounds. Often overlooked today, punctuation marks – and not words – bring feminist worlds into being. To illustrate this, I will present first results of a year-long ongoing research project on the use of interpunctions in feminist theory.