Speaker Series Archive
Since Spring 2003, LGBT Studies has continued to sponsor a spring lecture
series with the hopes of contributing stimulating and important conversations
to the campus community.
In 2007 we celebrated the 5th annual lecture series, "Now
Queer This! Sexual Dissidence in Popular Culture." This
series turned a scholarly eye on the queerness that so often puts
the "pop" in popular culture. From the homoeroticism of sport to the
gender-bending of fashion and musical performance, from cross-dressing
on the Renaissance stage to same-sex kisses on TV shows, from the
pop art of the 1950s to the queer comics and anime of the 2000s--Sexual
dissidence and gender variation have been staples of mass culture
and entertainment. But how does queerness signify in these cultural
spaces and forms? Is it subversive of a dominant, heteronormative
order, or are queer energies inevitably captured or contained by that
order? Why is Broadway so welcoming to queer people and style, while
the sports world is still so anxious about sexual minorities in the
locker room? To shed critical light on images and activities that surround
us every day, whether we are aware of them or not, the following experts were
invited to campus:
|
Spring
2007 - Now Queer This! |
|
Pat Griffin |
"New Rules for the Old Ball Game: Challenging Homophobia in Women's Sports"
|
March 12, 2007 |
Stacy Wolf |
"'Defying Gravity,'
or How Wicked's Women Queered the Broadway Musical"
|
April 3, 2007 |
Jonathan D. Katz |
"'Committing the Perfect Crime': Sexuality, Assemblage
and the Postmodern Turn in American Art" |
April 17, 2007 |
|
Gayatri Gopinath |
"Queer Regions: Locating Lesbians in Ligy Pullappally's The
Journey
|
May 3, 2007 |
The 4th annual lecture series,
"Queering the Spirit: Religion, Race, and Sexualities,"
was spurred by several questions. What happens when religion, race,
and sexuality-particularly non-normative sexualities-meet up in the
public sphere? Or within the often conflicted heart or soul of an
individual? In what ways and in what kinds of faith tradition are
practices is it fair to say that the spirit has been queered or made
open to sex and gender variation? How have racism and colonialism
shaped attitudes toward homo-sexualities among, for example, religious
African Americans, Hindus, Muslims, or the Afro-Cuban practitioners
of Santeria? What roles has religion played in 20th-century movements
for civil rights for racial and sexual minorities? In the attempt
to tackle these and other challenging questions, the series consisted
of the following lectures. Select lectures are available for viewing.
Spring
2006 - Queering the Spirit |
Sharon Groves,
Ruti Kadish, Meredith Moise |
Watch:
Part 1 "Political Perspectives on Religion, Race,
and (Homo)Sexualities: A Roundtable"
Part 2 "Political Perspectives on Religion, Race,
and (Homo)Sexualities: A Roundtable "
|
February
23, 2006 |
Ruth Vanita |
Watch
Part 1 "Together in Life after Life: Ideas of Same-Sex
Union in Hindu and Christian Traditions"
Part 2 "Together in Life after Life: Ideas of Same-Sex
Union in Hindu and Christian Traditions"
Part 3 "Together in Life after Life: Ideas of Same-Sex
Union in Hindu and Christian Traditions"
|
March
6, 2006 |
Kelly
Brown Douglas |
Watch:
Part 1 "Testifying to the Blues: Sexuality and the
Black Church"
Part 2 "Testifying to the Blues: Sexuality and the
Black Church"
Part 3 "Testifying to the Blues: Sexuality and the
Black Church"
|
April
5, 2006 |
Salvador Vidal-Ortiz |
"Bodies Worshipping the Orishas: Sexual Minorities in Santeria"
(This lecture not available on video) |
April
12, 2006 |
Faisal Alam
|
"Hidden Voices: The Lives of Queer Muslims"
(This lecture not available on video) |
April 27, 2006 |
The 3rd annual lecture series, "Here is a Queer Planet:
LGBT Studies in Global Contexts," built upon Michael
Warner's 1993 edited collection, Fear of a Queer Planet:
Queer Politics and Social Theory which heralded the arrival
of a new way of doing cultural and political work on sex and
sexuality. Audacious, antiassimilationism, and attentive to both
the global underpinnings and the local specificities of sexuality
and gender, queer studies aimed to travel widely and across a wide
range of disciplinary and geopolitical boundaries. This year's
lecture series created opportunities to continue that journey.
Through speakers, film and discussions, the series presented multiple
perspectives on global queerness and considered the face and the
shape of LGBT Studies and queer activism beyond U.S. borders and
within diverse communities. The events for this 3rd annual
series included:
|
Spring 2005 - Here is a Queer Planet |
Helen Zia |
"The Coming 'Minority' Majority and other Diversity
Challenges: Margin Notes of an Asian American Writer" |
February 22, 2005 |
Irshad Manji |
"Confessions of a Muslim Dissident: Why I Fight for Gays and Lesbians, Women, Jews… and Allah" |
March 16, 2005 |
Martin Manalansan |
"Queers, Race and the Neoliberal City" |
April 14, 2005 |
Dangerous Living (a film by John Scagliotti) |
Film Screening |
May 5, 2005 |
Spring 2004 brought the 2nd annual lecture series, "Queer(ing)
Citizenship: Before and After Lawrence". In June, 2003
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that laws
criminalizing consensual, private sexual contact between same-sex partners
violated the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The decision,
which has been compared to Brown v. Board of Education in terms
of its civil rights implications, set off major public debates about
marriage and transformed the meanings of citizenship for America's
sexual minorities. This lecture series aimed to offer the campus
community an opportunity to reflect upon the transformations and the
history that preceded them. The distinguished speakers invited to
campus included:
|
Spring 2004 - Queer(ing) Citizenship |
George Chauncey |
"Lawrence v. Texas: Sexual Identity/Politics in the 20th Century" |
February 23, 2004 |
Dwight McBride |
"Straight Black Studies" |
March 15, 2004 |
Michael Warner |
"Whitman, Secularism, and the Whitmaniacs" |
April 5, 2004 |
Elizabeth Birch |
"Queer Politics in the 21st Century" |
April 26, 2004 |
In Spring 2003, in conjunction with its inaugural seminar, the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program sponsored its first annual spring
lecture series. The series and the seminar were entitled,
"A Queer
Decade: Taking Stock of Studies in Sex, Culture, and Society."
Marking its official coming-out through this lecture series, the program's goal
was to offer students, faculty, and the campus community an opportunity to reflect
upon the then current state of studies of sexuality in a range of disciplines and
sub-disciplines. To this end, four distinguished speakers were invited to campus:
|
Spring 2003 - A Queer Decade |
Jose Esteban Munoz |
"A Phenomenology of Brown Feelings: La Lupe in New York" |
February 17, 2003 |
Judith Halberstam |
"Shadows on a Dime: Subcultural Lives and Queer Temporalities" |
March 10, 2003 |
Chai R. Feldblum |
"Rectifying the Tilt: Equality Lessons from Religion, Disability, Sexual Orientation, and Transgender" |
April 7, 2003 |
Steven Seidman |
"Beyond the Closet: Lesbians and Gays Today" |
April 28, 2003 |
|
