Queer Love, Literature and Philosophy : On Reading The Argonauts

In this article, I suggest Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts challenges “epistemic habits” in contemporary critical thought on gender, politics, sexuality, intimacy, identity, and love. In particular, I focus on how Nelson through descriptions of queer life, love, and kinship articulates moral-existential and queer-philosophical perspectives on everyday life by bringing the “I-You” relationship to the fore of feminist and queer theoretical concerns. By reading Nelson with the philosophy of Wittgenstein, I discuss how love is related to views on language and what it means to say that one can have, as well as lack a faith in words, other people and linguistic meaning. The Argonauts, I argue, shows us the importance of acknowledging moral-existential perspectives of gender and identity and their role in I-You relations. The article raises questions of how to understand the relationship between theory, philosophy, and ordinary language in relation to cultural critique and criticism (Butler 1990; Sedgwick 2003). It also discusses love as a perspective one might take and have in life and to other people in general, not exclusively as romantic love, but as a philosophical perspective in thinking about gender, identity, politics, love, and intimacy.Peer reviewe

A Critique of Our Own? : On Intersectionality and “Epistemic Habits” in a Study of Racialization and Homonationalism in a Nordic Context

This article discusses how debates regarding intersectionality enable self-reflexitivity, positionality and critique, but also risk becoming routinized gestures in activist and academic settings. Through reflections on the notions of epistemic habits and epistemic whiteness, the article discusses key critiques of intersectional analysis, such as tendencies to re-centre whiteness, as a methodological concern. To illuminate the argument, I consider an example from a research project a colleague and I conducted on racialization and homonationalism in LGBTIQ activist work in a Finnish context, which brought up the question of whether our analysis reinforced or challenged whiteness. The aim of this article is to reflect on how intersectionality is a crucial concept for feminist knowledge production while also attending to and problematizing some presuppositions, that are routinely repeated as self-evident starting points in intersectionality research.Peer reviewe

Rapid construction of a dendritic cell vaccine through physical perturbation and apoptotic malignant T cell loading

We have demonstrated that adherence and release of monocytes from a plastic surface drives their differentiation into immature dendritic cells (DC,) that can mature further during overnight incubation in the presence of apoptotic malignant T cells. Based on these results, we sought to develop a clinically, practical, rapid means for producing DC loaded with malignant cells. A leukapheresis harvest containing the clonal, leukemic expansion of malignant CD4(+ )T cells was obtained from the blood of patients with cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL). CTCL cells were purified with a CD3-magnetic bead column where CD3 engagement rendered the malignant T cells apoptotic. The monocyte fraction was simultaneously activated by column passage, re-added to the apoptotic CTCL cells and co-cultured overnight. CTCL cell apoptosis, DC differentiation and apoptotic malignant T cell ingestion were measured by immunostaining. The results demonstrate that as monocytes passed through the column matrix, they became activated and differentiated into semi-mature DC expressing significantly increased levels of class II, CD83 and CD86 (markers associated with maturing DC) and reduced expression of the monocyte markers CD14 and CD36. Apoptotic malignant T cells were avidly engulfed by the phagocytic transitioning DC. The addition of supportive cytokines further enhanced the number of DC that contained apoptotic malignant T cells. Functional studies confirmed that column passaged DC increased class II expression as shown by significantly enhanced stimulation in mixed leukocyte culture compared to control monocytes. In addition, DC loaded with apoptotic CTCL cells stimulated an increase in the percentage and absolute number of CD8 T cells compared to co-cultivation with non-loaded DC. After CD8 T cells were stimulated by DC loaded with malignant cells, they mediated increased apoptosis of residual CTCL cells and TNF-α secretion indicating development of enhanced cytolytic function. We report a simple one-step procedure where maturing DC containing apoptotic malignant T cells can be prepared rapidly for potential use in vaccine immunotherapy. Ready access to both the DC and apoptotic cells provided by this system will allow extension to other malignancies through the addition of a variety of apoptotic tumor cells and maturation stimuli