ICTS Webinar Series Spring 2022 –
“Digital Feminism, Activism, and Transnational Spaces”, Dr Marita Ryan (MIC),
May 4th 2022 @ 1pm (IST)

Spring Webinar Series 2022 in association with the Institute for Irish Studies and the Irish Women’s Writing Network

The digital world has fundamentally changed how we engage with feminist theory, research and practice. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges presented by digital feminism. It takes, as a starting point, a study by Josiane Jouët who, as part of a three-member research team conducted a two-year research project on feminist activism in France that focused on the role of digital media, analysing its impact on feminist practice and organisation, where as she attests ‘many results have broader implications for the evolution of feminism in Western countries’. The paper examines the implications of a selection of these results in an Irish context and considers the nature of feminisms in Ireland in the present day. It considers how digital media mobilises awareness of feminist causes in both a local and global context and promotes feminist activism in both online and offline environments. Considering forms of digital feminist activism in Ireland facilitates a discussion around the level of material change that may emerge and the transnational spaces and communities that arise from these practices.

Biographical Note: Dr Marita Ryan is a Lecturer with the Department of English Language and Literature in Mary Immaculate College where she teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research interests include literary and cultural theory, French Feminist theory esp. the work of Luce Irigaray, and Contemporary Irish Literature. She was co-editor of Passages: Movements and Moments in Text and Theory and has published articles on Luce Irigaray’s work in a multicultural context. Her doctoral research explored the representation of the migrant in a range of contemporary Irish literature.