Aurelia Zhang ’27 delivered her presentation in Abbot Hall.
Brace Fellow Aurelia Zhang ’27 presented her research on the historical and political roots of asexuality through the lens of Italian futurism and feminist thought on Monday. Titled “Asexual Liberation: Portrayals of Asexuality in Feminist Thought,” Zhang’s presentation drew connections between early 20th-century artistic movements and perceptions of asexuality and challenged the audience to reconsider it as a framework for questioning social norms.
Zhang explained her goal of spotlighting the connections among the three seemingly unrelated subjects and linking them to a modern-day movement.
“My research…traces the idea of asexuality through Italian Futurism, which is an artistic movement in the early 20th century, and how that artistic movement gave birth to ideas in later fascism and second-wave feminism. I’m trying to connect those three artistic movements and compare them to how we describe asexuality now with the LGBTQ+ movement,” said Zhang.
John Bird, Instructor in English, was Zhang’s faculty advisor and supported her throughout the process. Bird highlighted the originality and depth of Zhang’s work.
“One of the things that attracted me to Aurelia’s project is the way she uses this discourse of futurism around gender, sexuality, and virility, and teases out of it early iterations of asexuality as a political position, which I think is really interesting and I had never really thought of. What stood out to me the most is mining this potentially very reactionary discourse that circulates around early futurism and finding the possibilities for different kinds of liberatory practices,” said Bird.
Matt Robinson ’27, who attended Zhang’s presentation, reflected on how the talk expanded his understanding of asexuality as a form of political resistance.
“I knew about asexuality as an identity that a lot of people have, but not necessarily as a political statement, which is what the talk was about. It was about how being asexual was redefining the norms of what was expected in [post-fascist] Italy, and how that was a form of political rebellion,” said Robinson.
Nathan Ramani ’27, a friend of Zhang’s who also attended the talk, recalled Zhang’s examination of how the traditional gender norms discussed in her talk have shifted today.
“At the end, Aurelia mentioned, while answering one of the questions from someone in the audience, that the way that the current gender social norms that society puts in place are working out, it seems to her and to other researchers that men are more trapped by their not-asexuality, or their sexuality, I guess, than women are, which was kind of a flip from the time period that Aurelia was examining,” said Ramani.
Ramani discussed how his perspective on asexuality changed before and after attending the presentation.
“I didn’t really think too much of it, especially in the historical context, and so the presentation did kind of open my eyes to the historical side of things and how asexuality could find its roots in both hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity, depending on the time period, and I thought [it] was really interesting that Aurelia got to talk about that,” said Ramani.
Another attendee, Alex Lin ’28, explained how the talk introduced her to the nuances of Italian futurists’ thoughts on women and femininity.
“It was really surprising seeing the Italian futurists’ perspectives on gender and how they would scorn women. It was less of women but more of femininity and what they perceived as weakness in the feminine side of things. If women acted less feminine, they actually didn’t mind that at all,” said Lin.
Zhang explained that the primary goal of her presentation was to encourage people to challenge how they identify and view their relationships based on the labels they’re given.
“I think, in modern society, it’s so common to see people prioritize romantic partners over friends and see those two as wildly different things, or one as better than the other. If you look at it from an asexual lens, you realize that you’re really just connecting with the person, and it doesn’t really matter what label you’re assigning to the relationship,” said Zhang.
