On Touching—the Inhuman That Therefore I Am

This essay explores the act of touching as it takes place in physical matter, in theorizing, and in the productive spaces where the two are indistinguishable. First, the author considers how feminist theory goes about touching science and unpacks touch as an act that reveals the self within the other and the other within the self. The essay then offers a tutorial in quantum field theory to prepare the reader for an unexpected interlocutor on the topic of touching: the electron. As Barad demonstrates with descriptions of electrons and how they have troubled physicists to the point of being “normalized” and called “immoral,” these particles resist normative notions of physical contact; they are perverse. On the…