Gore Capitalism
Borderization and Live Regime
With Sayak Valencia, Professor of Cultural Studies, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte
The talk will be divided in three parts. First, I will make a brief summary of what I understand to be the concept of Gore Capitalism (see Sayak Valencia, Gore Capitalism, MIT Press, 2018). Despite being formally theorized in a different context, I emphasize how the concept continues to be quite generative in illuminating linkages between explicit violence and drug trafficking, ten years later after its coinage.
Second, I reflect on ‘borderization’ as a form of governance that is simultaneously manifested in our everyday realities and atrociously grounded in the geopolitical.
Finally, I will unfold the linkages between Fascism 2.0 and what I denominate as Live Regime, and I posit that these linkages become intensified under the new realities of COVID-19 and g-lotaritism.
Capitalismo Gore
fronterización y régimen live
La conferencia está organizada en tres partes, primero haré un breve repaso de qué entiendo por Capitalismo Gore (ver Sayak Valencia, Capitalismo Gore, Melusina, 2010) y cómo una década después puede tener sentido para interpretar cuestiones distintas a lo que originalmente fue su objetivo: pensar la violencia explícita en México en relación con el narcotráfico.
En segundo lugar hablaré sobre la Fronterización como una forma de gobierno que se extiende en nuestros días más allá de la geopolítica pero que se verifica atrozmente en ella.
En tercer lugar hablaré sobre el fascismo 2.0 y su relación con lo que yo denomino régimen live, conceptualización que se verifica en nuestra “nueva normalidad” por el COVID-19 y g-lotaritarismo.
Curator: Eithne Luibheid (Gender and Women’s Studies)
Translator: Mariana Manriquez (Sociology)
Lecture (open to the public): Thursday, December 10, 2020, 6-7:30pm (MST)
Seminar: Friday, December 11, 2020, 11am-12:30pm (MST)
"El Muro Rosa de Trump" by Estudio 3.14 (México) and The Mamertine Group (USA)
Trump calls the border wall "beautiful." Inspired by the pink walls of Luis Barragán, these images incorporate Mexican aesthetic tradition to depict "la perversidad política y la megalomanía," the political perversity and megalomania. Read more here.
El crédito de la foto: Liliana Falcón. "Sayak Valencia, RED." 2019.
Sayak Valencia (Tijuana, BC, Mexico, 1980) holds a PhD in Critical Theory and Feminist Theory from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Valencia is a poet, writer and performance artist. In addition, Valencia is a professor and researcher in the Department of Cultural Studies at Colegio de la Frontera Norte, and a researcher at CONACYT—national research center of science and technology. Sayak Valencia has given conferences in a diversity of topics, including: borders, violence, narcoculture, Gore Capitalism, transfeminisms, Chicano feminism, post-colonial feminism and queer theory in universities across the globe. Valencia has published a generous number of articles in scholarly journals from across the globe, including: Spain, Germany, France, Poland, Mexico, Argentina and the United States.
Sayak Valencia (Tijuana, BC, México, 1980). Doctora en Filosofía, Teoría y Crítica Feminista, con Mención Europea, por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Poeta, ensayista y exhibicionista performática. Profesora Investigadora Titular B en el Departamento de Estudios Culturales del Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Centro de Investigación CONACYT. Miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, Nivel 1. Ha dictado conferencias y seminarios sobre: fronteras, violencia, narcocultura, Capitalismo Gore, transfeminismos, feminismo chicano, feminismo poscolonial, arte y teoría queer en diversas universidades de Europa y el continente americano. Entre sus obras recientes se incluyen: Gore Capitalism (Semiotexte /MIT 2018), Capitalismo Gore (Paidós, 2016 y Melusina, Barcelona, 2010), Adrift's Book (Aristas Martínez, Badajoz, 2012), El reverso exacto del texto (Centaurea Nigra Ediciones, Madrid 2007), Jueves Fausto (Ediciones de la Esquina / Anortecer, Tijuana 2004), así como una treintena de artículos académicos y capítulos de libros en revistas de España, Alemania, Francia, Polonia, México, Argentina, los Estados Unidos, Colombia, entre otros.
Seminar readings (PDFs are password protected):
Selections from Dr. Valencia’s book, Gore Capitalism (Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 5, and the Conclusion), which provide contextual information for the first and third parts of her talk
Valencia Gore Capitalism Intro and Ch 1.pdf
Valencia Gore Capitalism Chapter 5.pdf
Valencia Gore Capitalism Conclusion.pdf
Corey Johnson et al, “Interventions on Rethinking the Border in Border Studies,” Political Geography 30 (2011): 61-69, which summarizes some of the major approaches to studying borders
Rethinking the Border in Border Studies.pdf
Martha Balaguera, “Trans-Migrations: Agency and Confinement at the Limits of Sovereignty,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43 no.3 (2018): 641-664, which can be read in dialogue about Dr. Valencia’s work
Additional reading (optional, for those who are interested) that connect to the talk, especially to concepts of transfeminism and the live regime, are:
Valencia, “The Regime is Live (-Streamed) and Kicking,” Re-visiones 9/2019
Valencia, “Necropolitics, Postmortem/Transmortem Politics, and Transfeminisms in the Sexual Economies of Death,” Transgender Studies Quarterly 6 no.2 (May 2019): 180-193