Louka Maju Goetzke

contact

Goethe-University Frankfurt
GRK Doing Transitions

address:
IKB-building, 4th floor, room 4690/4730
Eschersheimer Landstraße 121
60322 Frankfurt am Main

postal address:
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1
IKB-Gebäude, Postfach 3
60323 Frankfurt am Main

goetzke(at)soz.uni-frankfurt.de

loukagoetzke.net

Louka Maju Goetzke holds master’s degrees in sociology, cultural studies, and political science. Since 2020, they are a doctoral researcher in sociology with a project on gender transitions with a new materialist approach.

  • MA Sociocultural Studies, European University Viadrina (2015-2019)
  • MA Sociology (Cultural Analysis), Goldsmiths University London (2017-2018)
  • MA d’Etudes Européennes et internationales, Université Paris 8 (2016-2019)
  • Design Thinking, Academic Programme, Advanced Track, Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Universität Potsdam (2014-2015)
  • Undergrad Research Assistant, Kompetenztandem Grundversorgung 2.0, Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University Lüneburg (2013-2014)
  • Erasmus Gender Studies, University of Lapland, Finnland (2012-2013)
  • BA Cultural Studies and Political Science, Leuphana University Lüneburg (2011-2015)

Research interests

  • Feminist Theory
  • Queer Theory
  • Trans Studies
  • New materialism
  • Deleuzian thinking
  • Philosophy of difference
  • Border studies
  • Temporality and transformation
  • Subjectivation, selfhood, embodiment, identity
  • History of ideas/thought/mentalities

Research Project “Doing Gender Transitions”

Gender transitions with their human and non-human participants are at the centre of the dissertation. Following theorist Susan Stryker, gender transitions are understood as a non-linear movement across a socially imposed boundary away from an unchosen starting place, the gender assigned at birth. The research project seeks to understand how a gender transition emerges. Hence, it asks which transitions take place in the movement away from the gender assigned at birth and how these are shaped by the given normative and discursive frames as well as material and institutional conditions, and their relation to cis-normative assumptions regarding gender.

To answer this question, i.a. 10 semi-structured interviews are collected and evaluated based on a grounded theory approach. The dissertation thus closes a research gap in both transition research, which does not currently consider gender transitions as a separate form of transition during the course of a person’s life, as well as in trans studies, as this dissertation takes a step back and asks what transitions are taking place within a movement away from the gender assigned at birth, what constitutes a gender transition. In addition, it contributes to theoretical understandings of transitions and to the disambiguation/unification of status phases, categories, and the dissolution of their boundaries, and it creates awareness of de-standardised development of gender over the life course.

Talks

01/10/2021Gender Transitions in Transformation: How do gender transitions emerge? A situated study with trans(itioning) subjects in Germany. Talk iat Interdisciplinary Online-Symposium “Gender in Transformation Processes: Central and Southeast European Perspectives”, University of Graz, Austria and University of Zadar and the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Split, Croatia
20/09/2021“Und dann konnte ich mich zum ersten Mal selbst so sehen.” – Zur Rolle von Un_sichtbarkeiten in Gender Transitionen. Paper at 8. Jahrestagung der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Geschlechterforschung “Ambivalente Un_Sichtbarkeiten”
01/09/2021Gender Transitions as a Sociotechnical Issue: A New Materialist Approach. Paper (peer-reviewed) at 15th Conference of the European Sociological Association, Conference Track Science and Technology, Barcelona
21/07/2021Crossing Boundaries: Gender Transitions as more-than-human-assemblages. Paper (peer-reviewed) at International Conference on Frontiers of Humanity and Beyond: Towards new critical understandings of borders, CHAM Centre for the Humanities Lissabon
10/06/2021Gender Transition: Eine Reise von einem Geschlecht ins andere? Presentation at “Studium Generale: Doing Transitions – wie sich Übergänge im Lebenslauf herstellen”, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
27/05/2021Towards fugitive subjectivities. Trans as a non-linear and deterritorialising movement. Paper (peer-reviewed) at „Creative Bodies – Creative Minds“ Conference, University of Graz
17-19/02/2021Doing Gender Transitions. Poster presentation at the international conference „Doing Transitions in the Life Course“, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
9-11/10/2019Queere Identitätskritik und Differenz. Poster presentation at the international conference “Categories in Flux”, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
05/07/2017Ein Recht auf mein Geschlecht: Über und gegen die Pathologisierung von Trans*-Personen. Presentation, University of Freiburg

Publications

Goetzke, Louka Maju (to appear). Werden statt Sein: VerUneindeutigung und positive Differenz. Hamburg: Marta Press

Goetzke, Louka Maju, Schwertel, Tamara, (2021). Neuer Materialismus [online]. socialnet Lexikon. Bonn: socialnet.

Goetzke, Louka Maju, Müssig, Magdalena (2020). Die Covid-19-Pandemie bedroht alle. Geschützt werden nur einige. Femina Politica, Heft 2/2020: Politiken der Generativität und Reproduktive Rechte

Goetzke, Louka Maju, Müssig, Magdalena (2020). Familismus in der Coronakrise. Soziologiemagazin, Blogreihe 8: Soziologische Impulse während Corona

For journalistic publications (mostly in German) please look here.

Teaching

  • Zu Übergängen forschen (Summer term 2021, guest lecture on new materialist approaches to transitions, in a team-taught seminar, with Tamara Schwertel), Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Umgang mit Geschlechtervielfalt: Einführung in die Trans Studies (Winter term 20/21), Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Zu Übergängen forschen – Perspektiven und Methoden zur Erforschung von Übergängen im Lebenslauf (Summer term 2020, guest lecture on Doing Gender Transitions in a team-taught seminar), Goethe University Frankfurt

Projects

Memberships