Winter 2026 Philosophy Colloquium Series: Passive-Aggression as Subversion
Friday, March 27, 2026
3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Faculty, Staff, Students
In this talk, GVSU Associate Professor of Philosophy Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco argues that passive-aggression can be a subversive strategy to help victims navigate oppressive interpersonal interactions. Passive-aggression—the indirect expression of negative emotions designed to inconvenience the target—is almost universally viewed as toxic behavior that damages relationships. However, she considers passive-aggression deployed in response to interpersonal interactions that are already hostile to marginalized individuals because they reflect some oppressive norm or expectation (for instance, a relative intentionally misgenders you; a coworker makes a racist joke about a colleague; the only woman student in a seminar is routinely ignored). In interactions like these, an underexplored but promising subversive strategy is to obliquely express anger through sarcasm, irony, strategic silence, recalcitrance, eye-rolling, deliberately avoiding eye contact, or overly saccharine compliance—to be passive-aggressive—and in so doing, challenge the oppressive norms and expectations in that interaction. She argues that passive-aggression can be subversive when three conditions are met: it (1) indirectly expresses the victim’s apt anger, annoyance, frustration, or other negative emotions (2) in a way that calls out, challenges, or undermines the oppressive norm, expectation, etc. in the interaction and that (3) inconveniences the target.
Location Information
B-1-138 Mackinaw Hall, Valley Campus
Download parking map for the Allendale Campus
Contact Information
Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco [email protected]
Hosting Department, Organization, or Business
Philosophy
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This event was added to the calendar by Bryana Quick (quickbry@mail.gvsu.edu) on Monday, March 2, 2026 and was last updated on Tuesday, March 3, 2026 at 9:42 a.m.