Another Now: Reading Utopias as a Method for Feminist Constitutionalism

Abstract

The scholarship in feminist constitutionalism has to date largely focused on equality provisions and women’s rights protections afforded by constitutions, as well as women’s participation as constitutional actors. This paper instead builds on the emerging epistemological and methodological turn in feminist constitutionalism to reimagine the sources of constitutionalism. Work by Houghton and O’Donoghue has highlighted “critical utopian” projections of feminist science fiction and feminist manifestos as alternative sources for feminist approaches to constitutionalism. Drawing on this work, and taking Yanis Varoufakis’ socialist utopian novel, Another Now (2020) as a starting point, this paper explores ways of reading literary utopias and their utility for feminist constitutional scholarship. From Frederic Jameson’s assertion that utopias should be read for their form rather than content, to Ruth Levitas’ provocation to see utopia archeologically and architecturally, utopian studies offer several ways in which utopia can be understood as a method. Bringing these methodological debates into feminist constitutional studies, this paper explores how reading utopias can contribute to the study of feminist constitutionalism.

About the speaker

Dr. Ruth Houghton is a Senior Lecturer at Newcastle Law School. Her research is situated within global constitutional scholarship, with a particular interest in constituent power and democracy. She is currently working on a number of related projects on feminist approaches to global constitutionalism: (1) feminist perspectives on sovereignty; (2) feminist perspectives on constituent power in global constitutionalism; (3) utilising utopias, science-fiction and feminist manifestos as methodology (with Professor Aoife O'Donoghue); (4) feminist approaches to populism (with Professor Ana Micaela Alterio); (5) a project concerning Madame de Staël's constitutional theory (with Dr Adam Rowe); (6) an exploration and critique of Gertrude Bell's role in constitution-making (with Dr Bronwen Jones). 

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