Human/Elf Same-Sex Sex Scene in Dragon Age RPG

In my discussion for today's Q+P+P Tea Time, I wanted to present a little bit about my own interests, work, and analyses of video games, particularly World of Warcraft, and to unpack some of the logics of race, gender, and sexuality in games. The current brouhaha over the male, same-sex sex scene in BioWare's Dragon Age provides a useful backdrop for my presentation:



Beyond the knee-jerk, neoconservative, religious right-wing responses over the game's promotion of homosexuality (and beyond the toothless claims by BioWare that the game is "just entertainment" and not meant to be "provoking" or "promoting"), the sex scene raises certain questions:

--Dragon Age is a game that highlights player "choice" and an immersive game world all about "choice;" the player then must "choose" to engage in the flirtation/romance. In a gamic and cultural context where the "choice" of homosexuality/queerness is not even on most menus, how might we read this game as an opportunity for imagining a queerer world? How might (see questions below) these "choices" be as essentializing, binary producing, or stereotypical?
--The sex scene ends with a discussion about "love" versus "sex," about "romance" versus "gratification." Does this fall into the stereotype of queer male promiscuity while simultaneously reinforcing the normative logics of coupledom and monogamy?
--The racial difference is important to consider. What role does the human male play? What role does the elf male play? And given the stereotypical taxonomies of fantasy race, elves are often feminized. Why does this self-professed assassin and sexual opportunist get figured as "bottom"?
--Finally, a more challenging question, where does the player him/herself play into this scene? How does the player's body and erotics and desires fit into the circuit here? What happens when a heterosexual player "chooses" to queer his character or to seek out the queer sex scene (even out of curiosity)?

Q+P+P Tea Time: "Queer/ing/s Online," Monday, 12/7, 3:30-5:00 PM, CMU 202

Queer + Public + Performance Tea Time
Monday, December 7
3:30-5:00 PM
Simpson Center Conference Room
University of Washington, Seattle

Queer/ing/s Online

The first of three Queer + Public + Performance Tea Times invites two PhD Candidates, Jessica Johnson of Anthropology and Edmond Chang of English, to share their current work, their research questions, and their objects of study. This quarter's Tea Time, entitled "Queer/ing/s Online," takes an interdisciplinary approach to the intersection of queer scholarship, cultural studies, and online texts, publics, and technologies, even pedagogies. Each discussant will give a brief presentation of their work and a lively discussion will follow.

Q+P+P Tea Times will be held once per quarter. These colloquia hope to encourage conversation, exchange, and open discussion. Each Tea Time will invite two or three faculty members, graduate students, even undergraduates who will start the conversation by briefly sharing their work, highlighting how that work aligns with the working goals of the Q+P+P and how their work negotiates the intersections of queer critique, public theory, and performance studies. The main goal of the Tea Times is to foster intellectual, academic, and political exchange that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Refreshments will be served.

This Q+P+P Tea time is co-presented with the HASTAC Scholars at the University of Washington.

"Looking for Mr. Good Avatar: Playing & Queering World of Warcraft"
Edmond Chang, English, HASTAC Scholar

My discussion of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft attempts to identify and interrogate sexuality, gender, and race in WoW to theorize and analyze the ways these logics are both normative and subversive. In other words, in a game of fantasy race and cybermediated desire, how and where and why might real world queerness, gender, and race be rendered and taken for granted? Furthermore, in the imagining (perhaps intrusion) of real world logics into the game, how might other formations, such as sexuality, be left unsettled or open? Looking at game play and game narratives, particularly the in-game Valentine's Day holiday event "Love is in the Air," my work argues for a productive opportunity in the play of, with, and play in
sexuality, gender, and race to discover countergaming potential and practices that challenge and exploit in- and out-of-game stereotypes and normativity.

"The Circulation of Biblical Porn: Masculine Visuality, Evangelical Publics, and Shock as a Political Affect"
Jessica Johnson, Anthropology

In my presentation, I will explore how and what kind of evangelical publics are generated through the digital circulation of sermons, blogs, and visual texts. I examine discourses on gender, sex, and sexuality as produced by a Seattle megachurch that specifically targets the least likely demographic to attend Christian services in the United States: 18-30 year old males. Reading the texts generated for and in response to a particular sermon series that explicitly discusses sexual freedom within a "biblical" (normatively gender distinct, heterosexual) marriage, I ask what it means to deploy "shock" as a political affect in the transnational dissemination of "biblical porn."

Writing with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Museum of History and Industry, 2700 24th Ave. E, Seattle, WA
Friday November 13 & Saturday November 14
Doors 7:00pm / Curtain 7:30pm

Join Bent Writing Institute for 2 nights of Seattle's best in queer writing and spoken work featuring Leah Lakshmi (more info below). $15 Student w\ ID, $20 General Admission.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Mentor Writing Workshop
Lifelong AIDS Alliance, 1002 E Seneca, Seattle, WA
Saturday, November 14
11am-1pm

Secrets, stories, scars, survival: Writing your dirty laundry, transforming violence and living to tell. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from a queer femme desi visiting town! The Bent Institute wants to encourage Trikone Northwest members to attend by offering the tickets to this event for $15, instead of the regular $25. Also, if you volunteer to table for the showcase events, you can get a FREE ticket. For more info on tickets, please contact nitika.raj@gmail.com

Brunch with Leah Lakshmi

Sunday, November 15

Time & Location: TBD (Please stay tuned!)

LGBT Funders Racial Equity Toolkit

For decades, studies have emphasized how deeply embedded discrimination, produced across generations, has critically impacted the quality of life and self-advancement of communities of color. For LGBTQ people of color, these conditions are exacerbated by attitudes and structures that treat people differently based on their sexualities and their gender identities and expressions. As evidence, a growing body of research continues to demonstrate this "heightened vulnerability" among LGBTQ people of color—to health risks, verbal and physical violence, and institutional discrimination.

In addition to reviewing the Toolkit, we’re kindly asking for your assistance in helping spread the word about this valuable resource.

(1) Can you send any portion of it out to your organizational contacts and colleagues?

(2) Can you post a link to this site on your web site?

(3) If you have a Facebook (or other social networking page) page, would you be willing to post a mention? Something such as, “Check out a new site on supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender communities of color” (Attach a link to http://www.lgbtracialequity.org)

We sincerely appreciate your help in spreading the word and hope that you find our LGBT Funders Toolkit on Racial Equity helpful to you in your work.

Thanks so much.

Ellen Gurzinsky

Program Director

Funders for LGBTQ Issues

116 East 16th Street 6th Floor

New York City, NY 10003

212-475-2930 ext. 12 ( voice)

212-475-2532 ( fax)

ellen@lgbtfunders.org

http://www.lgbtfunders.org

The Impact of Homophobia on LGBT Citizens @ UW-Seattle, 11/17, 4 PM

The Impact of Homophobia on LGBT Citizens: A Comparative Canada-US Perspective

4:00 pm
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Parrington Hall Forum
UW-Seattle Campus

Featuring Douglas Janoff, Author, Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada

The Canadian Studies Center is pleased to present a roundtable discussion with special guest Douglas Janoff, author of Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada. Janoff will provide an overview of the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Canada. In spite of impressive political gains, however, homophobic violence persists.

Join us for a roundtable discussion on the impact of homophobia on LGBT citizens on both sides of the border. Legislative staff from Olympia, as well as a volunteer attorney on LGBT Issues from the ACLU, will also be on hand to discuss homophobia emerging from recent voter referenda and legislation.

Douglas Janoff

Doug Janoff works is a senior policy advisor for the Government of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He has degrees in political science, creative writing and criminology and is a Ph.D. candidate in Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa. His current research interests include violence against transsexuals and transgendered people, as well as the different forms of homophobia and transphobia that occur throughout the Americas.

In addition to his academic research, Doug has published several articles for newspapers and magazines. Over the years, these articles have covered a broad range of queer-related topics: AIDS in Brazil, AIDS in Toronto, gay marriage, AIDS in Vancouver, drag queens, and homophobic violence in Vancouver, Mexico, and Istanbul. For more information on Doug's research, visit www.pinkblood.ca.

This roundtable discussion is sponsored by the Canadian Studies Center, the UW Libraries, and the Q Center.

Queer Listening Publics

Here is my interview regarding the exhibition I worked on at the Wing Luke Asian Museum, "Across the Spectrum: Stories from Queer Asian Pacific America." For those who want to get involved with Winter Quarter's Tea Time and readings, this will give you an idea of the exhibition (we're planning a joint public program with the Museum in conjunction with this exhibition):

http://kuow.org/program.php?id=18652

Also, listening to it, I'm curious if anyone else has thoughts about how to talk about queer projects in the public sphere. That is to say, my read about queer scholarship and arts projects is that they're rather esoteric and jargony. Moreover, my sense is that much of the queer "stuff" that's out there doesn't speak to everyday practices as well as it could. How should we approach public discourse about queer practices so that it both 'queers' the discourse and meets the general public where they are at, such as, talking about "gay" or "lesbian" people versus "queer"?

Thanks!

Josh

Autumn Reading Group: "Queer"

Autumn Reading Group

Queer + Public + Performance's Reading Group is meeting on Monday, November 2, 6 PM, in COM 226, Seattle-UW campus. The readings selected for the Autumn Reading group think about, rearticulate, and open the thematic "queer." The hope of the reading group is to identify and discuss lines of inquiry and investigation beyond the usual queer theory canon -- queer on the edges as it were. We open with several keywords from the Keywords for American Cultural Studies collection and include several short readings from After Sex, the Summer 2007 special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly.

Please print out the readings and bring them with you to the Reading Group:

Keyword: Queer
Keyword: Public
Keyword: Performance
Keyword: Sex
Keyword: Gender

After Sex: Intro
After Sex: Still After
After Sex: Cvetkovich's "Public Feelings"

Blog About Town: Film (Festivals) as Public Scholarship

The first Q+P+P "blog about town" asks participants of current and upcoming local queer-friendly film festivals -- Tasveer's South Asian Film Festival, the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, HUMP -- to write up short-short critiques of films thinking about how they engage questions of queerness, how they might function as public scholarship, and what provocations they make about intersection of queer scholarship, performance, art, and technology.  To take up this blogging challenge, simply attend a film, post your critique as a comment to this thread, provide film info and a very brief summary, and engage the prompts above -- all under 250 words.  One film per comment.  Post as many as you'd like.  Q+P+P will collect these mini-critiques and use them as part of our November Reading Group discussion.  Blog away!

Q+P+P Inaugural Meeting & Reading Group

Thanks to everyone who attended the Q+P+P inaugural meeting.  It was nice to see new and familiar faces.  The meeting's agenda was pretty simple: 1) introduction to the Q+P+P and our objectives, 2) outline of the upcoming Q+P+P year, 3) planning for autumn quarter's Reading Group and Tea Time. 

The Year

Each quarter will be given a general thematic and framing lens: Autumn = "Queer," Winter = "Public," Spring = "Performance."  Events, readings, speakers, and productions would be geared toward thinking about each thematic.   Of course, we would maintain an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach to these terms every quarter.

We are looking for speaker suggestions for the Winter.  And we are looking for performance suggestions for the Spring.  Please comment with people and performances (preferably who are local or will be local and who will offer their time pro bono) that might suit the Q+P+P project. 

Autumn Reading Group

Q+P+P is soliciting suggestions for the Autumn Reading Group (Monday, November 2, 6 PM, COM 226).  Readings should expand, challenge, rearticulate the thematic "Queer," perhaps identifying and showcasing lines of inquiry and investigation outside of the usual queer theory or queer studies canon -- queer on the edges as it were.  For example, a suggestion was made to make the Reading Group in part about discussing the various queer-friendly film festivals happening in Seattle (e.g. Tasveer's South Asian Film Festival, the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, even HUMP).  Please post your suggestions via comments for readings for the Reading Group for this upcoming quarter (and others). 

Autumn Tea Time

Tentatively, the autumn Tea Time will feature the intersection of 'queer' and 'technology', in particular online spaces and technologies.  If you have suggestions of faculty, community member, local queer website purveyor that would be good to invite, please leave a comment below.  If you would like to present your work, please contact the Q+P+P.  Tea Times are meant to be intimate colloquiums where presenters briefly sketch their work and interests and the majority of the time is devoted to discussion and exchange.

UW Out List

An interesting thing to think about: there has been a great deal of analysis, critique, and apprehension around "coming out" and its teleology/epistemology. The idiom "coming out" has moved into mainstream usage (though still invoking/evoking ambivalent undertones of hope and shame). But even in the US context, coming out does provide an entrance into the intersections of queer, public, and performance. With "National Coming Out Day" (October 11) approaching, might we revisit this seemingly hashed out issue?

Meanwhile, from the Q Center at UW: It is that time of year! Let's all come out as allies or qltstqqigb folks!!! If you are interested in having your name appear in our annual outlist that will appear in The Daily on Monday, October 12th. Please go to this link: https://catalysttools.washington.edu/webq/survey/jms13/85248

Queer + Public + Performance Inaugural Meeting, 10/5, 6 PM

Queer + Public + Performance
INAUGURAL MEETING
Monday, Oct 5 - 6:00 PM
Communications 226
UW-Seattle

At this inaugural meeting, the group will open the floor to introductions of attendees and their work.  Also on the agenda is charting the course for the series of quarterly reading groups and tea times to be held throughout the year, as well as beginning to answer one of the questions that speaks to the very existence of a queer research collective such as this: To what extent and with what investments is a queer public formed in and through queer performance and the performance of queerness?

Q+P+P invites collaboration and coalition.  Please come with suggestions for: 1) a reading you'd be interested in discussing at one of our reading groups, 2) an idea for a tea time discussion, 3) a faculty member you know who would be willing to participate in our teas, 4) on and off campus groups you think should be a part of our "public," and 5) local performers and artists that might embody, evoke, or complicate the work of the group.

Queer + Public + Performance is a working group that engages the intersection of queer scholarship, performance, art, and technologies within the university and beyond. The group intends to engage cross-disciplinary, crossplatform public cultural and intellectual work. This year will focus specifically on queer publics and counterpublics to explore the practices, projects, and lived experiences situated on the peripheries of official publics. We hope to emphasize the co-constitutive and at times antagonistic intersections between “sex,” “gender,” “race,” “class,” and “nation” as we think about how keywords such as “sexuality,” “intimacy,” “queer theory and performance,” and “publicity” are constituted and complicated by changes (both conservative and transgressive) in regional and global political, economic, academic, and cultural interchanges.

For more information, go to http://queerpublicperformance.blogspot.com/ or http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/projects_0910_queer_public_performance.htm

Feminist Legacies / Feminist Futures

The Simpson Center for the Humanities is hosting a 3-day conference (October 22-24, 2009) for the 25th anniversary of Hypatia, arguably the leading feminist journal in the US. The conference will feature some of the most influential feminist thinkers working today -- like, Kelly Oliver, Sandra Harding, Allison Jaggar, Maria Lugones.

Conference and registration details are here.

QPP Planning Meeting

The QPP will be having a pre-quarter planning meeting on Wednesday, September 9 at Schultzy's (on the Ave) at 5 PM.  The meeting will run about an hour or so. 

Queer + Public + Performance @ UW

Queer + Public + Performance is a research cluster that will engage the intersection of queer scholarship, performance, art, and technologies within the university and beyond. To do this work, we intend to mobilize queer and allied scholars, teachers, artists, and activists to engage cross-disciplinary, cross-platform public cultural and intellectual work.  This year will focus specifically on queer publics and counterpublics to explore the practices, projects, and lived experiences situated on the peripheries of official publics. We hope to emphasize the co-constitutive and at times antagonistic intersections between “sex,” “gender,” “race,” “class,” and “nation” as we think about how keywords such as “sexuality,” “intimacy,” “queer theory and performance,” and “publicity” are constituted and complicated by changes (both conservative and transgressive) in regional and global political, economic, academic, and cultural interchanges.