Dr Victoria Browne
Reader in Politics
School of Social Sciences
Role
Victoria has been teaching at Brookes since 2013, and specialises in political and feminist theory. She has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Liverpool, and is a member of the editorial collective for the journal Radical Philosophy.
Teaching and supervision
Modules taught
- Introduction to Politics
- Academic Literacy
- Political Thought 1
- Political Thought 2
- Sex, Gender and Politics
Supervision
Dr. Emily Cousens: 'Feminism and the Politics of Vulnerability: Re-assessing Contributions from the Feminist "Second Wave"' (awarded 2020).
Research
My main area of interest is the relationship between politics and the ways that we organise, experience and imagine time. For example, in my book Feminism, Time and Nonlinear History (2014), I ask what difference it could make to feminist politics if we think of the history of feminism as a fractured, back-and-forth, multi-stranded process, rather than a straight line of progress from past to present to future. More recently, my interest in the politics of time has led me to consider how 'pregnant time' is configured around the future of the imagined child within dominant cultural imaginaries, and what this means for pregnancies that end in miscarriage. My book on this topic - Pregnancy without Birth - will be out in 2022.
Research group membership
- Space and Temporalities research cluster
Research grants and awards
- Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2017-2018)
- BA Conference Award (2017)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Competition Award (2008–2011)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council Taught Masters Competition Award (2004–2005)
Publications
Journal articles
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Browne V , 'Anti-Abortion Feminism: How is this even a thing? '
Radical Philosophy 2 (13) (2022) pp.27-42
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here Open Access on RADAR -
Browne V, 'A Pregnant Pause: Pregnancy, Miscarriage and Suspended Time '
Hypatia 37 (2) (2022) pp.447-468
ISSN: 0887-5367 eISSN: 1527-2001AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARThis article takes the rupturing of normative linear reproductive time that occurs in the event of miscarriage as a potentially generative philosophical moment – a catalyst to rethink pregnancy aside from the expectation of child production. Pregnant time is usually imagined as a linear passage toward birth; accordingly, the one who “miscarries” appears as suspended within an arrested journey that never arrived at its destination, or indeed, as ejected from pregnant time altogether. But here I propose to rethink both pregnancy and miscarriage through the lens of “suspended time” - a theoretical move that shifts the accent from the future as the dominating frame of reference to the lived present. Drawing on work by Kathryn Bond Stockton, Lauren Berlant, Lisa Baraitser and others, the article explores overlooked temporalities of pregnancy and miscarriage that operate not in the mode of futural projection or futural loss, but rather, through present-oriented forms of adjustment and sensing, attachment and intimacy, ritual and routine, maintenance and care. By “suspending the future”, then, we can resist the oppositional framing of pregnancy and miscarriage, because if pregnant time is not represented in exclusively future-oriented terms as being-towards-birth, then miscarriage need not be understood as pregnancy’s undoing.
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Browne V, 'The forgetting of Mary Wollstonecraft’s religiosity: teleological secularism within feminist historiography'
Journal of Gender Studies 28 (7) (2019) pp.766-776
ISSN: 0958-9236 eISSN: 1465-3869AbstractPublished hereReligious concepts and themes are central to many of Mary Wollstonecraft’s writings, yet rarely feature within popular representations of her life, work and legacy today. This paper examines the forgetting of Wollstonecraft’s religiosity in light of the broader narratives that western feminism circulates about its past and present, focusing particularly on the historiographical practices and temporal tropes that construct feminism as a quintessentially secular project. It also considers the potentially transformative impact that unforgetting Wollstonecraft’s religiosity could have within feminist historiography and politics in the present, in terms of parochializing the political certitude of secular feminism and the politics of division conducted in its name.
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Browne V, 'The Politics of Miscarriage'
Radical Philosophy 2.03 (2018) pp.61-72
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here Open Access on RADAR -
Browne V, '"The money follows the mum”: Maternal Power as Consumer Power in the National Maternity Review'
Radical Philosophy 199 (Sep/Oct) (2016) pp.2-7
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XAbstractCommentaryPublished here Open Access on RADAR -
Browne V, 'Feminist Philosophy and Prenatal Death: Relationality and the Ethics of Intimacy'
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 41 (2) (2016) pp.385-407
ISSN: 0097-9740 eISSN: 1545-6943AbstractPeople affected by prenatal death often grapple with some serious philosophical questions: What kind of life is it that dies before it is born? What has been lost, and how do we mourn a life that has never been lived in an external social world? Yet within academic philosophy, prenatal death is an almost entirely neglected issue. This is true even within feminist philosophy, where sustained attention has been given to gestation, birth, and reproduction, but the norm is to presume that pregnancy results in a living child. The aim of this article, therefore, is to start addressing the questions articulated above, giving a philosophical account of prenatal death and the grief that can ensue. The first part explores feminist philosopher Alison Stone’s understanding of death as relational and argues that Stone’s relational model offers a way of making sense of what is lost in prenatal death, and the significance of mourning for a life that was never born. The second part develops this argument further, drawing on feminist writings on abortion that link the relational approach to an ethics of intimacy. My concluding claim is that relational theories enable us to think in terms of a spectrum of pregnancy, and to affirm the pro-choice position that women should be able to determine the length and outcome of their pregnancies as far as possible, while also recognizing the significance of prenatal death and the ways it can impact upon us as relational beings.Published here -
Browne V, 'The persistence of patriarchy: Operation Yewtree and the return to 1970s feminism'
Radical Philosophy Nov/Dec 2014 (188) (2014) pp.9-19
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here Open Access on RADAR -
Browne, V, 'Backlash, Repetition, Untimeliness: The Temporal Dynamic of Feminist Politics'
Hypatia 28 (4) (2012) pp.905-920
ISSN: 0887-5367AbstractPublished hereSusan Faludi's Backlash, first published in 1991, offers a compelling account of feminism being forced to repeat itself in an era hostile to its transformative potentials and ambitions. Twenty years on, this paper offers a philosophical reading of Faludi's text, unpacking the model of social and historical change that underlies the “backlash” thesis. It focuses specifically on the tension between Faludi's ideal model of social change as a movement of linear, step-by-step, continuous progress, and her depiction of feminist history in terms of endless repetition. If we uphold a linear, teleological ideal of social change, I argue, repetition can only be thought of in negative terms—as a step backwards or a waste of time—which in turn has a negative and demoralizing impact within feminism itself. To explore an alternative model of historical time and change, I turn to the work of feminist philosopher Christine Battersby, who rethinks repetition through the Kierkegaardian mode of “recollecting forwards,” and the Nietzschean notion of “untimeliness.” I suggest that Battersby's philosophical reconceptualization of historical repetition, as a potentially creative, productive phenomenon, can be of great utility to feminists as we enact and negotiate the dynamics of backlash politics.
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Browne V, 'Memory and the Metaphysics of Music: Battersby’s Move Away from Deleuze and Guattari'
Women: A Cultural Review 22 (2/3) (2011) pp.155-167
ISSN: 0957-4042 eISSN: 1470-1367AbstractThis essay seeks to further elucidate and critically assess the distinct philosophical position of Christine Battersby through examining in closer detail her critique of Deleuze and Guattari. It begins by discussing Battersby's reading of Deleuze and Guattari's materialist metaphysics, which focuses on their evocation of the ‘refrain’ in A Thousand Plateaus. Through tracing their account of the material processes of repetition within the world of sound and music, Battersby acknowledges that Deleuze and Guattari offer an enticing alternative to the ‘top-down’ Kantian metaphysics of form over matter. However, she argues, the key problem is that Deleuze and Guattari seek to ‘bypass memory’, and end up establishing a false dichotomy between memory and repetition. In consequence, Deleuze and Guattari's ‘rhizomatics’ and ‘surface becomings’ block any investigation into the long-term patterns of repetition and memory that constitute specifically sexed, embodied modes of existence. Battersby turns instead to Kierkegaard's concept of repetition, which, she claims, brings memory and repetition together, showing that ‘repetition can mark out depths as well as surfaces’. The essay goes on to reassess Battersby's critique. It suggests a possible route for defending Deleuze against Battersby's charge that he seeks to ‘bypass memory’ by pointing out the pivotal role occupied by Bergson's concept of memory within Deleuze's solo-authored work. The essay concludes, however, by arguing that Battersby's critique of Deleuze as a resource for feminist philosophy nevertheless remains valid. This is because Deleuze's reworking of Bergson's concept of ‘virtual’ memory takes us no further towards the deeply ingrained material and historical patternings of female existence that Battersby seeks to give priority in her quest to overturn the androcentrism of western metaphysics.Published here
Books
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Browne V , Pregnancy Without Birth: A Feminist Philosophy of Miscarriage , Bloomsbury (2022)
ISBN: 9781350279681 eISBN: 9781350279728AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARPregnancy is so thoroughly entangled with birth and babies in the popular imagination that a pregnancy which ends in miscarriage consistently appears as a failure or a waste of time – indeed, as not proper to pregnancy at all. But in this compelling book, Victoria Browne argues that reflection on miscarriage actually deepens and expands our understanding of pregnancy, forcing us to consider what pregnancy can amount to besides the production of a child.
By exploring common themes within personal accounts of miscarriage-including feelings of failure, self-blame and being 'stuck in limbo'-Pregnancy Without Birth critically interrogates teleological discourses and disciplinary ideologies that elevate birth as pregnancy's 'natural' and 'normal' endpoint. As well as politicizing miscarriage as a feminist issue, the book articulates an alternative intercorporeal philosophy of pregnancy which embraces variation, invites us to sit with ambiguity, contingency and suspension, and enables us to see subjective agency in all pregnancies, even as they are shaped by biological, political and social forces beyond our personal control. What emerges is a relational feminist politics of full-spectrum solidarity, social justice and care (rather than individualized choice and responsibility), which breaks down presumed oppositions between pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth and live birth, and liberates pregnancy from reproductive futurism.
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Browne V, Danely J, Rosenow D, (ed.), Vulnerability and the Politics of Care: Transdisciplinary Dialogues, Oxford University Press (2021)
ISBN: 9780197266830AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARVulnerability is a fundamental aspect of existence, giving rise to the need for care in various forms. Yet we are not all vulnerable in the same way, and not all vulnerabilities are equally recognised or cared for. This transdisciplinary volume considers how vulnerability and care are shaped by relations of power within contemporary contexts of war, development, environmental degradation, sexual violence, aging populations and economic precarity.
It proposes that care for vulnerable populations or individuals is inseparable from other political processes of recognition, welfare, healthcare and security, whilst also exploring vulnerability as a shared, generative condition that makes caring possible. Ethnographic and narrative accounts of vulnerable life and caring relations in various geographical regions - including Japan, Uganda, Micronesia, Iraq, Mexico, the UK and the US - are interspersed with perspectives from philosophy, International Relations, social and cultural theory, and more, resulting in a compelling series of intellectual exchanges, creative frictions and provocative insights. -- Supplied by publisher.
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Axford B, Browne V, Huggins R, Isaacs R, Politics: An Introduction (3rd ed.), Routledge (2018)
ISBN: 9780415571906 eISBN: 9781315629346AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARThe eagerly awaited third edition of this highly respected and user-friendly text for introductory courses has been thoroughly updated to reflect the world today. Politics: An Introduction provides stimulating coverage of topics essential to the understanding of contemporary politics. It offers students necessary guidance on ways of studying and understanding politics, and illustration of the many different sites at which politics is construed and conducted. Ideal for students taking combined degrees at introductory level in politics and the social sciences, it emphasises the individual and social dimension of politics and covers theories and concepts in an accessible way. Fundamentally, it helps students see the political, and its relevance, in their lives.
- a revised introduction considering ‘what is politics’ and how we understand and approach its study
- clear and well-organised coverage of political theory, political behaviour, institutions and the policy process
- carefully crafted in-text chapter features such as ‘consider this’ thought-provoking scenarios, ‘think points’, keyword definitions, chapter summaries, and exercises designed to enliven and extend the learning experience
- stimulating, up-to-date examples and case studies from across the globe, such as ‘fake news’, online activism, the rise of populism, culture wars, ‘fertility tourism’ in India, hydropower in Cambodia, free speech in France, and personality politics in Turkmenistan
- detailed consideration of democratisation, authoritarian regimes, direct democracy, gender critical perspectives, minority rights, global capitalism, social movements, radical political change, post-secularism, and challenges and changes brought by social media.
Politics: An Introduction is a broad-ranging, accessible, and essential guide for all students studying, or beginning to study, politics.
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Rye G, Browne V, Giorgio A, Jeremiah E, Lee Six A, (ed.), Motherhood in literature and culture: interdisciplinary perspectives from Europe, Routledge (2017)
ISBN: 9781138648173 eISBN: 9781315626581AbstractMotherhood remains a complex and contested issue in feminist research as well as public discussion. This interdisciplinary volume explores cultural representations of motherhood in various contemporary European contexts, including France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the UK, and it considers how such representations affect the ways in which different individuals and groups negotiate motherhood as both institution and lived experience. It has a particular focus on literature, but it also includes essays that examine representations of motherhood in philosophy, art, social policy, and film. The book’s driving contention is that, through intersecting with other fields and disciplines, literature and the study of literature have an important role to play in nuancing dialogues around motherhood, by offering challenging insights and imaginative responses to complex problems and experiences. This is demonstrated throughout the volume, which covers a range of topics including: discursive and visual depictions of pregnancy and birth; the impact of new reproductive technologies on changing family configurations; the relationship between mothering and citizenship; the shaping of policy imperatives regarding mothering and disability; and the difficult realities of miscarriage, child death, violence, and infanticide. The collection expands and complicates hegemonic notions of motherhood, as the authors map and analyse shifting conceptions of maternal subjectivity and embodiment, explore some of the constraining and/or enabling contexts in which mothering takes place, and ask searching questions about what it means to be a ‘mother’ in Europe today. It will be of interest not only to those working in gender, women’s and feminist studies, but also to scholars in literary and cultural studies, and those researching in sociology, criminology, politics, psychology, medical ethics, midwifery, and related fields.Published here -
Browne V, (ed.), On the Feminist Philosophy of Gillian Howie: Materialism and Mortality, (2016)
ISBN: 9781474254120AbstractOver three decades, Gillian Howie wrote at the forefront of philosophy and critical theory, before her untimely death in 2013. This interdisciplinary collection uses her writings to explore the productive, yet often resistant, interrelationship between feminism and critical theory, examining the potential of Howie's particular form of materialism. The contributors also bring to this debate a serious engagement with Howie's late turn towards philosophies of mortality, therapy and 'living with dying'. The volume considers how differently embodied subjects are positioned within public institutions, discourses and spaces, and the role of philosophy, art, film, photography, and literature, in facing situations such as sexual oppression and life-limiting illness. -
Browne V, Feminism, Time, and Nonlinear History, Palgrave Macmillan (2014)
ISBN: 9781137413154 eISBN: 9781137413161AbstractHow can feminism draw productively on its own history, without passively conforming to expectations of the past, or elevating the past as a nostalgic ideal against which to measure and compare the present? Feminism, Time, and Nonlinear History proposes an innovative 'polytemporal' model of historical time in relation to feminist historiography. Interweaving phenomenological, hermeneutical, and sociopolitical analyses, this book considers the ways in which feminists conceptualize and produce the temporalities of feminism, including the time of the trace, narrative time, calendar time, and generational time. Interweaving phenomenological, hermeneutical, and sociopolitical analyses, this book considers the ways in which feminists conceptualize and produce the temporalities of feminism, including the time of the trace, narrative time, calendar time, and generational time--Supplied by publisher.Published here Open Access on RADAR
Book chapters
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Browne V, 'Feminist historiography and secularist hegemony' in Hawthorne SM (ed.), Gender: God, Macmillan (2017)
ISBN: 9780028663173 eISBN: 9780028663258 -
Rye G, Browne V, Giorgio A, Jeremiah E, Lee Six A, 'Editors' introduction' in Motherhood in literature and culture: interdisciplinary perspectives from Europe, Routledge (2017)
ISBN: 9781138648173 eISBN: 9781315626581 -
Browne V, 'The temporalities of pregnancy: on contingency, loss and waiting' in Rye, G, Browne V, Giorgio A, Jeremiah E, Lee Six A (ed.), Motherhood in literature and culture: interdisciplinary perspectives from Europe, Routledge (2017)
ISBN: 9781138648173 eISBN: 9781315626581 -
Browne V, 'Editors’ Introduction: Gillian Howie’s Philosophies of Embodied Practice' in Browne V, Whistler D (ed.), On the Feminist Philosophy of Gillian Howie: Materialism and Mortality, Bloomsbury (2016)
ISBN: 9781474254120 eISBN: 9781474254137Published here -
Browne, V, 'Scholarly Time and Feminist Time: Gillian Howie on Education and Intellectual Inheritance' in Victoria Browne and Daniel Whistler (ed.), On the Feminist Philosophy of Gillian Howie: Materialism and Mortality, Bloomsbury (2016)
ISBN: 9781474254120 eISBN: 9781474254137Published here -
Browne V, 'Gender and Philosophy' in Marchbank J, Letherby G (ed.), Introduction to Gender: Social Science Perspectives, Routledge (2014)
ISBN: 9781408244500
Reviews
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Browne V, review of Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason by Penelope Deutscher
Radical Philosophy (202) (2018) pp.93-96
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here -
Browne V, review of Phenomenology of Pregnancy / ed. Jonna Bornemark and Nicholas Smith
Radical Philosophy (200) (2016) pp.51-54
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here -
Browne V, review of Willful Subjects / by Sara Ahmed
Radical Philosophy (193) (2015) pp.54-56
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here -
Browne V, review of Solitary Confinement: Social Death and its Afterlives / by Lisa Guenther
Radical Philosophy (185) (2014) pp.53-56
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here -
Browne V, review of Review essay: Explorations in feminist historiography: Rhetoric, affect, and "what really happened" in feminism's recent past (Why Stories Matter: The Political Grammar of Feminist Theory / by Clare Hemmings ; and Feeling Women’s Liberation / by Victoria Hesford)
Subjectivity 7 (2) (2014) pp.210-218
ISSN: 1755-6341 eISSN: 1755-635XPublished here -
Browne V, review of Undutiful Daughters: New Directions in Feminist Thought and Practice / ed. Henriette Gunkel, Chrysanthi Nigianni and Fanny Soderback
Radical Philosophy (181) (2013) pp.54-57
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here -
Browne V, review of The Problem with Work: Marxism, Feminism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries / by Kathi Weeks
Radical Philosophy (175) (2012) pp.65-68
ISSN: 0300-211X eISSN: 0300-211XPublished here -
Browne V, review of Adorno on Nature / by Deborah Cook
Environmental Values 21 (2) (2012)
ISSN: 0963-2719 eISSN: 1752-7015
Other publications
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Srinivasan A, Browne V, Proctor H, Rao R, 'What should feminist theory be? An interview with Amia Srinivasan', (2022)
Published here Open Access on RADAR -
Browne V, 'Oedipus interrupted (Introduction to a special cluster on ‘Changing Models of Motherhood’)', (2013)
AbstractThis special cluster on ‘Changing Models of Motherhood’ introduces two papers presented at a workshop hosted by the AHRC-funded 'Motherhood in Post-1968 European Literature Network'. The aim of the Network has been to enable cross-cultural, transnational, and interdisciplinary dialogue on motherhood, bringing together researchers and practitioners from the UK and Europe studying motherhood in contemporary European literatures, and across a broad range of disciplines and European cultures. In particular, the Network aims to raise the profile of literature in such conversations.Published here