The New Politics of Online Feminism (with Dr Akane Kanai)

A roundtable discussion with Dr Akane Kanai (University of Warwick) to launch her new book, The New Politics of Online Feminism (Duke University Press).

In recent times, it has never seemed more important to avoid complicity with patriarchy, racism and capitalism. News of worsening structural violence is always simply a click away; what you wake up to on your phone, and the screen you close before you go to bed at night. What does this mean for how young feminists navigate the personal and the political in contexts of everyday online immersion? In her new book, The New Politics of Online Feminism (DUP 2026), Kanai suggests that online feminist cultures crystalise current tensions: making terms like 'intersectionality' and 'toxicity' common sense at the same time as naturalising individual scrupulousness, diligence, and expertise as a response to the urgent need for structural transformation. Join us for a roundtable discussion and book launch with Akane Kanai, Jamie Hakim (KCL), Katrin Schindel (KCL), Ros Gill (Goldsmiths) and Catherine Rottenberg (Goldsmiths), as part of the MCCS Community Lectures series.

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Akane Kanai is a feminist cultural studies scholar based at the University of Warwick, with key research interests in how affect shapes the relational politics of knowledge and identity in online culture. She recently completed a research fellowship on online feminist culture funded by the Australian Research Council, and is collaborating on a project on youth selfie-editing practices.

Jamie Hakim is a senior lecturer in media and cultural studies at King’s College, London. His research interests lie at the intersection of digital cultures, intimacy, embodiment and care. He is author of Work That Body: Male Bodies in Digital Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), and co-author of Digital Intimacies: Queer Men and Smartphones in Times of Crisis (Bloomsbury, 2024) and The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence (Verso, 2020).

Katrin Schindel is a lecturer in the School of Education, Communication & Society at King's College London whose research investiagtes the interplay of femininity, feminist subjectivities, and digital platforms. Her doctoral project explored the popularisation of intersectionality under neoliberalism in German-speaking digital feminism. She is currently working on her first monograph.

Rosalind Gill is Professor of Inequalities in Media, Culture and Creative Industries at Goldsmiths. Her research focuses on gender, sexuality, race, and class, particularly in the context of media, technology, and cultural and creative industries. She is the author of several influential books, including Confidence Culture (2022) with Shani Orgad, and Perfect: Feeling Judged on Social Media (Polity, 2023)

Catherine Rottenberg is Head of Media and Culture and Professor in the School of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths. She works in the areas of feminist theory and feminist media studies, with a particular focus on neoliberal feminism and the politics of care.

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