Simon(e) van Saarloos, "Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto" (Emily Carr UP, 2023)

Apr 13, 2023

Author Simon(e) van Saarloos discusses 'Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto,' challenging ageism in a unique queer perspective. Topics include critiques of societal norms, intersections of age with various aspects of society, navigating misinterpretations and power dynamics, exploring infidelity in non-monogamous relationships, and embracing intergenerational intimacy.

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Introduction

00:00 • 3min

Challenging Ageism: Intersections and Critiques

03:00 • 20min

Challenging Heteronormativity and Consent in Queer Spaces

22:42 • 11min

Exploring the Intersection of Social Movements and Institutional Responses

33:43 • 3min

Navigating Misinterpretations and Power Dynamics

36:43 • 11min

Exploration of Infidelity in Non-Monogamous Relationships and Academia

47:13 • 3min

Intersections of Time, Access, and Age

49:59 • 23min

Embracing Intergenerational Intimacy

01:12:39 • 5min

Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto starts with what it is not: it is not a socio-economic argument against ageism, celebrating “the elderly” as economically viable. Author Simon(e) van Saarloos is not interested in natural arguments about age, which portray different age groups as valuable because of assumed inherent qualities. Instead, this manifesto starts with an experience of childhood sexual abuse, and moves on to dissect the ways in which constructions of “age” and “youth” function to support and reproduce white supremacist patriarchy. The book includes two reproductions of works by painter Samantha Nye.

"Age! What is good for? Absolutely nothing! (Apart from greasing the wheels of capitalist reproduction.) In this queer manifesto, Simon(e) van Saarloos weaves a wealth of militant sex-liberationist, afrofuturist, transfeminist and decolonial imaginaries into their anti-ageist sails, charting a confident course across contemporary society's generational hang-ups as well as visiting, in some more personal moments, their own."

-Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation and Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family

Simon(e) van Saarloos is the author of Take ‘em Down (Publication Studio Guelph) and Playing Monogamy (Publication Studio Rotterdam). They were the curator of the 2021 exhibition on Abundance (“We must bring about the end of the world as we know it” – Denise Ferreira da Silva) in Het HEM and are also the host of *The Asterisk Conversations podcast.

Lani Hanna is a doctoral candidate in Feminist Studies at University of California Santa Cruz. Her dissertation considers the strategies and tactics of queer, transfeminist, and left political counter-institutional archives that operate as community gathering spaces to survive against displacement in gentrifying cities. She lives in Oakland and is a part of the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair and Interference Archive Collective in Brooklyn.

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