Author: Tessa Smorenburg

Tessa Smorenburg

Tessa Smorenburg (1987) graduated as a master in Ethics of Care and Policy at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht (NL) in 2015. She currently holds the double position of ethical consultant, and policy advisor in the Centre on the Quality of Life and Survivorship, at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek hospital in Amsterdam (NL). This centre accommodates the physical/psychosocial, supportive and survivorship care for cancer patients. As a sociotherapist she worked in direct contact with patients in psychiatric clinics. Her previous experience at TAAK brought her in contact with visual artists and care institutions to whom she provided an ethics of care perspective during research and project development for the programme “Art & Care”.

Politics of the Ordinary – Care, Ethics and Forms of Life

The 11th volume in the Peeters Ethics of Care series is written by Sandra Laugier: Politics of the Ordinary – Care, Ethics and Forms of Life (2020). In the spring of 2019, our editors Tessa Smorenburg and Madzy Dekema, travelled to Paris (FR) to interview her about the book which was also the cornerstone of her key note speech in this year’s conference of the Care Ethics Research Consortium. Her plea is to use ordinary language philosophy as a basis for a re-definition of care ethics and to draw attention to the ordinary life as the focus of care in moral expression.

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Girl, The everyday struggle of a transgender

The Belgian film Girl (Lukas Dhont, 2018) shares the intimate life of a fifteen year old girl named Lara. She dances at a renowned ballet academy in Belgium, and she hopes to fulfil her dream of becoming a professional ballerina. The film opens with her admission interview, wherein it is explained that she will be granted a trial period – because Lara isn’t just any girl, she is a transgender girl, born male.

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