Penn Book Center Philadelphia, Penn State University
Institute für Contemporary Art Philadelphia

The Alien Ally

Anti Electra . The Radical Totem of the Girl

In this lecture-performance Elisabeth von Samsonow presents the key ideas of her eponymous book in a self-commenting hysterical attack. She shows how the figure of the girl represents not just the left-out, ephemeral, powerless neutrum in the family romance but turns out to be the core player in totemic transavantgarde. Mirroring and critizing concepts from the Deleuzian/ Guattarian Anti-Oedipus, Elisabeth von Samsonow's book Anti Electra unfolds how the substance of the girl - far beyond the reality of girlisms - fires contemporary  media culture, gender concepts and today’s revisions of ontological positionalities.

Photo credit: Jeff Bark