Abstract
This contribution attunes to the lower frequencies of persistent irritations and woundings in the ecologies of the productivist academy commonly called stress. 'Stress' is a widely used but under-examined cipher for the 'hidden injuries of the neoliberal university' (Gill 2010). As an expression of being moved by a phenomenon, stress - like care - enacts vulnerability, interconnectedness and obligation, albeit in a way where the human capacity to speak, be productive and know where one's body begins and ends appears compromised.
Caring about stress typically entails individualised self-care practices of 'managing', controlling and (re)channelling stress responses through coping techniques, recently framed as caring for one's cortisol levels (Roberts 2018). Inspired by material feminist conceptions of care that foreground failure, fragility and intra-action and Astrid Schraders's (forthcoming) proposal of caring with, I experiment with a poetic speculative sound performance of student memory works (Lorenz-Meyer 2015).
What would it mean not to attempt to control bodily dissociation but to amplify the woundings of stress collectively? Could heart racing, sweat, and stomach growls become the grounds for feminist solidarity, a community of refusal enacted (also) physiologically? Inciting listeners to care differently with, not about, stress's woundings, I rethink the materialisations of irritation, attentiveness and thoughtfulness for fostering alternative relationalities in the academy.