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Wednesday 15 April 2026. Book launch Women’s ageing and sexuality: unruly aesthetics and panel discussion, concluding with a scientific-artistic performance.
PROGRAMME OVERVIEW - This day will be exclusively in English. / Deze dag is volledig in het Engels.
13:45-14:00: Introduction of the Later-in-Life Intimacies project by Katrien De Graeve, PI
14:00-16:00: Older womxn: intimate possibilities and unruly imageries
This session explores the sensible order that defines women’s intimate possibilities, the unruly ways in which older women disrupt it, and the openings this creates for new imaginaries.
14:00-14:40: Presentation upcoming book by Katrien De Graeve & Giulia Nazzaro
How do older women use art and media to resist ageist and sexist norms that regulate their intimacy and sexuality? Women’s ageing and sexuality: unruly aesthetics (2026, Bristol University Press - Policy Press) brings the subversive aesthetic strategies of older women to the forefront, using the concept of ‘unruliness’, understood as a failure or unwillingness to conform. Drawing on critical age studies, feminist theory and allied critical approaches, the book develops a new conceptual model that positions ageing women’s aesthetic interventions as a source of insight and social change. Combining theory with close readings of art and media, offers a framework for rethinking ageing, sexuality and empowerment.
Katrien De Graeve is Associate Professor of Gender Studies at the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender, and PI of the Later-in-Life Intimacy project. Grounded in sociolinguistics and anthropology, her research exposes how inequalities are reproduced in the intimate and interpersonal dimensions of life.
Giulia Nazzaro is a postdoctoral researcher and project integrator on the LilI project. Trained in anthropology and museum studies, she builds on her previous research exploring how marginalised communities challenge cultural and social assimilation.
14:40-16:10: Paul Reynolds in conversation with Lynne Segal about ageing, sex, desexualisation, care, friendship and loneliness
Lynne Segal is Anniversary Professor Emerita of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. A lifelong socialist feminist, she has combined influential scholarship with decades of activism on gender, justice and social equality. In more recent years her work has centred on ageing, most notably in her acclaimed book Out of Time (2013), which brings feminist insight to the emotional and political dimensions of growing older.
Paul Reynolds is currently an Associate Lecturer with the Open University (UK) and has written and taught on sexuality studies and sexual ethics and politics extensively across the UK and Europe, including a visiting Professorship at the University of Gent in 2017-2018. He is a Series Editor of the University of Bristol/Policy Press Series Sex and Intimacy in Later Life. His current research interests are sexual literacy, sexual diversity and kink.
16:10-16:30: Tea and coffee
16:30-17:00: My splendid AI Progeny - performance by Dr. Jacobs, Drag Professor
In this performance-lecture, “Dr. Jacobs” tells a tale of creating an AI descendant. Dr. Jacobs, Professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies, is approaching retirement and has been invited to join Afterglow, a secret corporate program through which a select group of ageing academics are invited to use AI models and turn themselves into “AI professors.” These are full-body humanoids who have extracted the entire intellectual make-up of the human professor, but who are required by contract to be 20 years younger. Dr. Jacobs explains the pains and pleasures of working for Afterglow and the birth of splendidly queer offspring
Katrien Jacobs is Associate Professor in Digital Media and Communication at Monash University Malaysia and is currently Gates research fellow at University of Grenoble Alpes. Her work can be found at www.Katrienjacobs.com
17:00-17:10: Closing
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