Karen Barad

Karen Michelle Barad (/bəˈrɑːd/; born 29 April 1956)^[3] is an American feminist theorist, known particularly for their theory of agential realism.

Biography[]

They are currently Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz.^[4] They are the author of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.^[5][6] Their 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 their doctorate in theoretical physics at Stony Brook University. Their dissertation presented computational methods for quantifying properties of quarks, and other fermions, and in the framework of lattice gauge theory.

Barad serves on the advisory board for the feminist academic journals and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.^[7][8]

Selected bibliography[]

Books[]

• Barad, Karen (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822339175.
• —— (2012). Agentieller Realismus: Über die Bedeutung materiell-diskursiver Praktiken [Agential Realism: On the Importance of Material-Discursive Practices] (in German). 45. Berlin: Suhrkamp. ISBN 9783518260456.
• —— (2015). Verschränkungen [Entanglements] (in German). Translated by Theodor, Jennifer Sophia. Berlin: Merve. p. 224. ISBN 978-3-88396-353-2.

Chapters in books[]

• —— (1997), "Meeting the universe halfway: realism and social constructivism without contradiction", in Nelson, Lynn Hankinson; Nelson, Jack (eds.), Feminism, science, and the philosophy of science, Dordrecht Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 161–194, ISBN 9780792346111.
• —— (1999), "Agential realism: feminist interventions in understanding scientific practices (1998)", in Biagioli, Mario (ed.), The science studies reader, New York, New York: Routledge, pp. 1–11, ISBN 9780415918688.
• —— (2000), "Reconceiving scientific literacy as agential literacy, or learning how to intra-act responsibly within the world", in Traweek, Sharon; Reid, Roddey (eds.), Doing science + culture, New York: Routledge, pp. 221–258, ISBN 9780415921121.
• —— (2001), "Re(con)figuring space, time, and matter", in DeKoven, Marianne (ed.), Feminist locations: global and local, theory and practice, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, pp. 75–109, ISBN 9780813529233.
• —— (2008), "Schrödinger's cat", in Smelik, Anneke; Lykke, Nina (eds.), Bits of life: feminism at the intersections of media, bioscience, and technology, Seattle: University of Washington Press, pp. 165–176, ISBN 9780295988092.
• —— (2008), "Queer causation and the ethics of mattering", in Giffney, Noreen; Hird, Myra J. (eds.), Queering the non/human, Aldershot, Hampshire, England Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, pp. 311–338, ISBN 9780754671282.
• —— (2012), "Was ist das Maß des Nichts? Unendlichkeit, Virtualität, Gerechtigkeit [What is the measure of nothingness? Infinity, virtuality, justice] (book number 099)", in Arnheim, Rudolf (ed.), dOCUMENTA (13) 100 Notizen – 100 Gedanken [dOCUMENTA (13) 100 notes – 100 thoughts] (in German and English), Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, ISBN 9783775731294
• —— (2013), "Diffraktionen: Differenzen, Kontingenzen und Verschränkungen von Gewicht [Diffraction: differences, contingencies and entanglement of weight]", in Bath, Corinna; Meißner, Hanna; Trinkhaus, Stephan; Völker, Susanne (eds.), Geschlechter Interferenzen Wissensformen - Subjektivierungsweisen - Materialisierungen (in German), Berlin / Münster: Lit Verlag, pp. 27–68, ISBN 9783643109040.
• —— (2017), "No Small Matter: Mushroom Clouds, Ecologies of Nothingness, and Strange Topologies of Spacetimemattering", in Bubandt, Nils; Gan, Elaine; Swanson, Heather; Tsing, Anna (eds.), Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States: University of Minnesota Press, pp. G103–G120, ISBN 9781517902377.

Journal articles[]

• —— (1998). "Getting real: technoscientific practices and the materialization of reality". differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 10 (2): 87–128. OCLC 95847344. Abstract.
• —— (Spring 2003). "Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter". Signs. 28 (3): 801–831. doi:10.1086/345321. S2CID 16424758. Reprinted in various anthologies.
• —— (November 2010). "Quantum entanglements and hauntological relations of inheritance: dis/continuities, spacetime enfoldings, and justice-to-come". Derrida Today. 3 (2): 240–268. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.463.6560. doi:10.3366/drt.2010.0206.
• —— (2012). "On touching – the inhuman that therefore I am". differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 23 (3): 206–223. doi:10.1215/10407391-1892943.
• —— (2012). "Nature's queer performativity". Kvinder, Køn & Forskning. 1–2: 25–53.
• —— (2014). "Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart". Parallax. 20 (3): 168–187. doi:10.1080/13534645.2014.927623. ISSN 1353-4645.
• —— (2017). "Troubling time/s and ecologies of nothingness: re-turning, re-membering, and facing the incalculable". New Formations. 92 (92): 56–86. doi:10.3898/NEWF:92.05.2017.
• —— (2019). "After the End of the World: Entangled Nuclear Colonialisms, Matters of Force, and the Material Force of Justice". Theory & Event. 22 (3): 524–550. ISSN 1092-311X.

See also[]

• Queer Theory
• Feminist Studies
• Michel Foucault
• Niels Bohr
• Epistemology
• Donna Haraway
• Technoscience

References[]

External links[]

• Karen Barad's UCSC web page
• Joseph Rouse's discussion of agential realism, available on MUSE
• Review of Getting Real at the Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research