"Life In Marvelous Times" Conference & Screening of Criminal Queers

Coming up this week (please distribute to interested lists and parties):

“Life In Marvelous Times”: Cultural Work in the Racial Present
Conference, University of Washington, Seattle
Thursday - Friday, May 14 - 15, 2010
http://www.raceknowledgeproject.org/

Situating these times within ongoing local and global histories of decolonial struggle, this conference explores how cultural work and cultural workers help to comprehend, re-think, and transform the racial present. Events include the following:

• Performances by Amber Flame, Ananya Dance Theatre (Minneapolis), Dean Spade (Seattle U.; Sylvia Rivera Law Project), Cristien Storm, and many more
• Presentations by the Prisoners Education Network, the Black Student Union, the Philippine United Students Organization (PUSO), and others
• Workshops and panels by cultural workers, scholars and activists from near and far

Special Events:

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 6:00 PM Kane 210
Keynote address by Vijay Prashad (South Asian History & International Studies, Trinity College), "Ends Don't Meet Where the Arms Can't Reach: Looking to DuBois to Bring Imperialism Back to American Studies"

Friday, May 14, 2010 - 8:00 PM HUB Auditorium
A special screening Criminal Queers, followed by a conversation with the filmmakers

Criminal Queers visualizes a radical trans/queer struggle against the prison industrial complex and toward a world without walls. Remembering that prison breaks are both a theoretical and material practice of freedom, this film imagines what spaces might be opened up if crowbars, wigs, and metal files become tools for transformation. Follow Yoshi, Joy, Susan, and Lucy as they fiercely read everything from the Human Rights Campaign and hate crimes legislation to the non-profitization of social movements. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Eric Stanley and Chris Vargas. Presented by The Race/Knowledge Project and the Queer+Public+Performance working group as part of the Life in Marvelous Times conference.

Race & Culture in these Marvelous Times Conference @ UW

“Life in Marvelous Times: Cultural Work in the Racial Present,” a conference and community dialog event

Keynote Address: Vijay Prashad, May 13th, 6pm, Kane 210 UW, Seattle Campus
Conference: May 14th, 9:00a.m-5:00pm, UW HUB, Seattle Campus
Film Screening: Criminal Queers, May 14th, 7:00pm, UW HUB Auditorium
All events are free and open to the public

Seattle, WA, May 13th-14th—The University of Washington’s Race/Knowledge Project presents, “Life in Marvelous Times: Cultural Work in the Racial Present,” a free conference and community dialog event open to the public.

Vijay Prashad, author and professor of International studies at Trinity College, gives Thursday evening’s keynote address, “Ends Don’t Meet Where the Arms Can’t Reach: Looking to Du Bois to Bring Imperialism Back to American Studies.” Friday features a full day of presentations by local and
national activists, cultural workers and scholars with performances by Amber Flame, Dean Spade, Cristien Storm and Ananya Dance Theatre. Closing the conference will be a screening of Criminal Queers, a film exploring a radical transgender and queer struggle against the prison industrial complex.  Co-presented by the Queer + Public + Performance research group, the filmmakers will be in attendance for a post-screening discussion.

The conference takes inspiration from the 2009 single, “Life in Marvelous Times” in which Mos Def declares that “we are alive in amazing times.”  The song suggests that we be amazed and marvel at how “basic survival requires super heroics,” at “revelations, hatred, love and war,” and at “delicate hearts” and “diabolical minds.”  Taking this cue from Mos Def, this event will marvel at the crisis, the beauty, the apathy, and the critical potential of our “marvelous times.”  The presenters will explore how cultural work and cultural workers help to comprehend, re-think and transform the racial present.
The Race/Knowledge Project is sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. More information is available at www.raceknowledgeproject.org

Life in Marvelous Times is also sponsored by Associated Students of the University of Washington, The Center for South Asian Studies, Student Activities and Union Facilities, University of Washington English Department, Q-Center, University of Washington Department of Women Studies, Queer+Public+Performance, The Hilen Fund, The Center for Global Justice at Seattle University, Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University, and Access to Justice Institute at Seattle University.

"Be Queer, Buy Queer!" International Video Contest

Win $10,000
"Be Queer, Buy Queer!"
International Video Contest

In partnership with Campus Pride, OUTmedia is seeking college students throughout the world to submit original videos on the theme, “Be Queer, Buy Queer!”

http://www.campuspride.org/outmedia.asp

Slams, rants, stand up, sketch, music frenzy, spicy splicing are all welcome. We want you to speak boldly, and outrageously on the vision, expressed by OUTmedia’s Founder, Shelly Weiss, “care about where you spend your every dime, invest in the businesses that believe and invest in you. Build your queer vision of your future, with what and where you buy today!”

Submit your own video responding to concept of "Be Queer Buy Queer," with a friend, your LGBTQQIA campus group, or run wild with your entire campus community! Present in video form "What Does Be Queer Buy Queer Mean To You?"

PRIZE: One winner will receive $10,000 in OUTmedia entertainment* and the opportunity to host the First Annual OUTmedia Queer Campus CultureFest! at their university --hosted by Kit Yan and being developed for TV airing. An additional prize of a performance by one OUTmedia artist will be given to the school with the most number of registered voters.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Submissions will be accepted through April 15, 2010, voting from April 16-29, 2010 -- and the winner announced at the culmination of Diversity Month on April 30, 2010.

Winter Reading Group: "Public"

Queer + Public + Performance's Reading Group is meeting on Monday, March 1, 6 PM, in CMU 202, Seattle-UW campus. The readings selected for the Winter Reading group will draw on the recent experiences of our Tea Time at the Wing Luke Asian Museum as we focus on the concept of "public." Opening with the "public" entry from Keywords for American Cultural Studies , and including discussion of Lauren Berlant's "Sex in Public" and selections from Michael Warner's Publics and Counterpublics , the group hopes to consider the following questions:

• How does queer (re)define the dichotomy of private and public? Can queerness ever actually be a private matter?
• To what extent and with what investments is a queer public formed in and through queer performance and the performance of queerness?
• How might we conceive of counterpublics and what is the political utility of a queer counterpublic? That is, if a counterpublic is defined through mobilizing around the shared experiences of oppression and the shared endgoals for navigating those oppressions, can queer groups, suspicious of any stable identity formation, arrange themselves as counterpublics and at what cost?
• What material and immaterial media are necessary for the enactment of queer publics and are those media differently hospitable to queer aims and interests?

The readings are available here:
Keyword "Public"
Berlant & Warner, "Sex in Public"
Warner, Chapter Three, "Styles of Intellectual Publics"

Queer + Public + Performance is a working group that will engage the intersection of queer scholarship, performance, art, and technologies within the University of Washington and beyond. Q+P+P is sponsored by the Simpson Center for the Humanities: http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/projects_0910_queer_public_performance.htm

FYI: Against Equality

An interesting take on queer politics & publics:

Against Equality
http://againstequality.wordpress.com/

The project is self-described: 

Against Equality is an online archive, publishing, and arts collective focused on critiquing mainstream gay and lesbian politics. As queer thinkers, writers and artists, we are committed to dislodging the centrality of equality rhetoric and challenging the demand for inclusion in the institution of marriage, the US military, and the prison industrial complex via hate crimes legislation.

We want to reinvigorate the queer political imagination with fantastic possibility.

Q+P+P Tea Time for the Senses, Thursday, Feb. 4, 4 to 8 PM, Wing Luke

Q+P+P Tea Time for the Senses
Thursday, February 4, 2010 / 4 to 8pm Wing Luke Asian Museum719 South King Street, Seattle, WA
http://www.wingluke.org/


Explore the spectrum of Queer Asian Pacific America by connecting, watching, hearing, and interacting with community members who creatively make Queer Asian space. Join us at The Wing Luke Asian Museum for Tea Time activities, including story time, art creation, a film screening and a discussion.  This event is held in conjunction with the exhibit, “Across the Spectrum: Stories from Queer Asian Pacific America."  The Queer + Public + Performance research cluster has organized this event alongside the Across the Spectrum Community Advisory Committee.

FYI: Panel Discussion: Status of LGBT Rights Under U.S. Immigration Law, 2/2, UW School of Law

Are you passionate about LGBT rights?

Do you care about immigration issues and immigrants' rights?

Ever thought about how U.S. immigration laws affect LGBT people?

Come to a fascinating, stimulating panel discussion about the Status
of LGBT Rights Under U.S. Immigration Law!

Organized by Outlaws, the Immigrant Families Advocacy Project, and the
Center for Human Rights and Justice.

When: February 2, 2010 at 5:30pm
Where: UW School of Law, William H. Gates Hall, Room 127, UW Seattle
Reception to follow (21+ only), Room 115

Who: Three distinguished panelists with diverse backgrounds and experiences

AARON C. MORRIS
Immigration Equality
As a Staff Attorney at Immigration Equality in Washington, D.C., Morris provides direct representation to indigent LGBT and HIV-positive foreign nationals in asylum proceedings, at adjustment-of-status and naturalization interviews, and in the federal
courts. Morris also represents transgender individuals in marriage-based green card applications and in obtaining gender-appropriate identity documents from U.S. immigration authorities. He also provides general legal advice to same-sex binational couples in navigating the immigration system. Currently, he serves as Secretary of the New York City Bar Associations Committee on AIDS.

JACQUE LARRAINZAR
Seattle Office for Civil Rights
Larrainzar joined the Seattle Office for Civil Rights in 2000, and in 2008 she became the manager for the Policy and Outreach Unit. Larrainzar has worked in many issues that impact LGBT communities in Seattle, including the passage of anti-discrimination legislation, hate crimes, same sex marriage, domestic partnership benefits, transgender issues, and police and LGBT community relations. She is most proud of having served on the steering committee of Unid@s a National LGBT Latino Civil Rights Organization, the Northwest Women’s Law Center Board of Directors, and UW’s “Q” Center, but her greatest accomplishments are having been selected Seattle’s Miss Gay Latina in 1998 and being the first lesbian from Mexico to win political asylum based on her sexual orientation.

ANGÉLICA CHÁZARO
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Cházaro currently works as a Staff Attorney in the VAWA and Impact Litigation Unitsof the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP). Before NWIRP, she worked with the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, Legal Aid Society’s Immigration Unit in New York, and Sanctuary for Families. She is author of "Witnessing Memory and Surviving Domestic Violence: The Case of Rodi Alvarado Peña," a chapter in an immigration text from the Rockefeller Series on Latin American Studies.

We hope to see you at this exciting, informative discussion!

Sponsored by: University of Washington Graduate & Professional Student Senate (GPSS); ASUW GBLT Commission; UW Student Bar Association (SBA); University of Washington School of Law Student Organization Sponsored Speaker Grant; and the following Registered Student Organizations - Outlaws, Center for Human Rights & Justice (CHRJ), and the Immigrant Families Advocacy Project (IFAP).

The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities. To request disability accommodations, contact the Office of the ADA Coordinator, at least 10 days in advance of the event.
(206) 543-6450 (voice); (206) 543-6452 (TDD); (206) 685-3885 (FAX); access@u.washington.edu (email).

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.