Jennifer Doyle at Cultural Studies

March 03, 2018

Jennifer Doyle, Professor of English at UC Riverside, will give a talk on Wednesday, May 16th from 12-1:30 pm in Hum 1, Room 210. Professor Doyle talk will address themes from her recent book Campus Sex, Campus Security (Semiotext(e) / Intervention, 2015).

Campus Sex, Campus Security is Jennifer Doyle’s clear-eyed critique of collegiate jurisprudence, in the era of campus corporatization, “less-lethal” weaponry, ubiquitous rape discourse, and litigious anxiety. Today’s university administrator rides a wave of institutional insecurity, as the process of administering student protests and sexual-assault complaints rolls along a Möbius strip of shifting legality. One thing (a crime) flips into another (a violation) and back again. On campus, the criminal and civil converge, usually in the form of a hearing that mimics the rituals of a military court, with its secret committees and secret reports, and its sanctions and appeals.

What is the university campus in this world? Who is it for? What sort of psychic space does it simultaneously produce and police? What is it that we want, really, when we call campus security?