Carbery, Rebecca |UK

Fellow at IAS-STS: 2015/16

Rebecca Carbery is a doctoral candidate in the Media and Communications department at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria where she is also an external lecturer in gender studies. In spring semester 2014, she was a visiting student researcher in the German department of the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her Masters in Photographic Studies at the University of Durham, UK in 2011 and also received her a BA (hons) in Modern Languages (German and French with Italian) in 2009. Her research focuses on self-representation of trans* and intersex people via new digital media: research interests also include queer studies/theory and new digital media.
 

Project at IAS-STS: Trans* and Inter*: Beyond transgender and intersex through English- and German-speaking new digital media

My doctoral project is situated in the areas of media and gender studies and deals with ways in which trans* and inter* people portray themselves in both German-speaking and English-speaking new digital media.  I use content, discourse, narrative, image analysis and affect theory to analyse YouTube video blogs (vlogs) and online written blogs by trans* and inter* people. Trans* is a relatively recent, more inclusive term to describe those traditionally (medically) identified as transvestite, transsexual or transgender. Trans* can therefore also encompass anyone else who does not feel comfortable with the gender that they were assigned at birth, that is, it recognises those who view their gender as non-binary. Inter* is an emancipatory umbrella term which has arisen from the people themselves to emphasise the diversity of bodily realities of bodies, which integrate parts traditionally seen as male or female. I aim to discover how these self-expressions can impact on societal gender discourse. I also consider whether any cultural differences become apparent in the different language forms (German- and English- speaking).

Selected Publications

‚Selbstrepräsentationen des genderqueeren Lebens: Jenseits des binären Geschlechtersystems und der heternormativen Zeitlichkeit und Räumlichkeit’ in When we were Gender… Geschlechter erinnern und vergessen, Hrsg., Jacob Guggenheimer, Utta Isop, Doris Leibetseder, Kerstin Mertlitsch, Klagenfurt/Celovec, 2013.

‚Genderqueer: Beyond the Gender Binary through contemporary amateur photography’ in Generar Cuerpos: Producciones discursivas sexuadas, Hrsg. Meri Torras, Barcelona, UOC, 2011.