The verb “to intimate” refers to the action of showing what you know. The noun “intimacy” refers to an interaction in which a person knows something and then shows that they know and what they know to another. This intimate interaction can be with a person, other living things, inanimate objects, the planet. The adjective “intimate” refers to that what is known or those who know and are known, those who show and get shown. The knowing or familiarity associated with intimacy can be cognitive or emotional or both and is often embodied. In intimate interactions you can show, manifest or perform the knowing in different ways: through language, art, music, physical actions, often involving skills and bodily habits. Intimate performance is involved in quotidian everyday actions (sex, sports, shopping, delivering a baby, breast-feeding, parenting, cooking, gardening, housework, household fighting, work) as much as in extraordinary ones (Olympic-level figure skating, an authoritative, yet daring execution of a Chopin piano concerto, a mother murdering her children, war). Both knowing and showing can be explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious. Intimate knowing can manifest as a showing that has the potential to be immensely powerful, ranging from showings that are nurturing and loving to showings that are cruel and destructive.

Recently, feminist and queer studies have turned to the concept of intimacy both as subject and as an analytic rubric. In this conference the focus will be on what we call slow intimacy, intimate interactions that are enduring, long-standing, in process, and in development over time. We seek to explore processes of knowing and showing that are subtle and nuanced, complex, multi-layered and intricate. We also aim to explore the processes of knowing and showing associated with slow intimacy:

• Who gets to know and who gets to show?

• In what conditions are knowing and showing possible?

• How is intimacy tied to power and how is it informed or shaped by larger societal processes (political, social, economic)?

Slow intimacy takes place in different sites, on different scales and involves different types of showing. The showing associated with slow intimacy can involve intellectual, sexual and cultural repertoires, as well as aesthetic and performative modes. We are aware of the fact that a certain temporal dialectic is at work in every instance of intimacy: it might take a lifetime to gain the knowing that goes into a fleeting showing. We are interested in an intimacy that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and dispersed over time.

In June 2020 we sent out a call for papers, inviting papers and performances that engage with the topic of slow intimacy. The resulting programme (see attached) includes academic papers, creative non-fiction, visual art, music, poetry and film. The emphasis was on exploring ways of making an intimacy that may be relatively unseen and unrecognisable, visible and recognisable in conscious and creative ways. We now are inviting people to attend the conference, hoping that all presenters and participants will respond to and interpret the notion of a slow intimacy. We trust that the discussions will be as interesting as the formal presentations.