Simon(e) van Saarloos is a US born writer and philosopher, living in Brooklyn, NY and Amsterdam, NL. Simon(e) writes the “e” in her name between parentheses because she questions gender norms and doubts anything that appears ‘as given’ or self-evident. Also, what’s between parentheses might be more meaningful than what is said to be meaningful.
She is the author of 4 books: Enz. Het Wildersproces [Etc. The Geert Wilders Trial, 2018], Het monogame drama [The monogamy Drama,] and De vrouw die [The Woman Who], Ik deug/deug niet [To Be Good or Not Be Good]. At the moment she takes part in the two year masters of visual arts at the Dutch Art Institute in The Netherlands.
In general her work, Simon(e) is interested in how memory works. In diverse forms of writing she unravels the impact that overlooked or suppressed histories have on contemporary life. At the moment she is working on a larger essay about ‘queer forgetting’ and political memory. The New Orleans research will feed into this.
For awhile now she has an interest in the lgbtq history of the southern states of the US, and more specifically New Orleans. As a queer woman with an interest in critical theory, queer and anti-racism activism, Simon(e) has met with several people from the lgbtq community that fled the south but who still to this day miss the southern hospitality, the slower pace, the food, and the social and cultural life. This intrigued her and became the incentive to dive into the (queer) city and do field research outside the city to better understand the queer histories of the Deep South.