Rethinking Fast Feminism slowly

As the editor of Shannon Bell’s Fast Feminism, I worked closely with Bell from 2007 to 2010, observing (with delight) her high-velocity encounters with the speed theories of Paul Virilio – including the ‘staircase’ method introduced in Pure War: ‘once an idea is introduced and deployed, jump to linkages with another idea and always, always do violence to the original context’ so that distinctions among points of departure collapse or blur. Fast feminism is an accident of speed theory, a method for writing as morphing, performative action, and situated embodiment. When theory is embodied it is always inflecting, reflecting, disturbing, and relational. In this article, I rethink, engage longitudinally, and do a performative intervention into fast feminism, focusing on how and when this philo-porno-political practice’s affective, high-velocity interventions are deployed with slowness and fast feminism becomes a medium and method for deceleration.