Something Queer This Way Comes...

The DC Queer Studies Symposium

A Two-Day Conference at the University of Maryland

April 17-18, 2009, College Park, MD

Free and open to the public

Visit our Web site here.

The new Web site is up. The program is set. The food is ordered. Now all we need it you.

Please join us this weekend for what promises to be a lively spring festival of scholarly exchange in an interdiscipline that continues to challenge and transform the humanities, the social and behavioral sciences, and the world in which we live.

Friday, April 17 offers presentations by graduate students from area schools, a reading by Washington-area poets Regie Cabico, Reginald Harris, Richard McCann, and a keynote address by Judith Halberstam, professor of English and gender studies at the University of Southern California and author, most recently, of In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005).

Saturday, April 18 features a full day of papers by faculty from area universities as well as discussion and socializing. The symposium is free and will include a reception on Friday as well as continental breakfast, lunch, and an off-campus dinner/reception on Saturday.

Please visit the DC Queer Studies Symposium Web site for location, parking, and event information.

The DC Queer Studies Symposium

The DC Queer Studies Symposium

A Two-Day Conference at the University of Maryland

April 17-18, 2009, College Park, MD

Free and open to the public

Visit our website here.

For those of you who attended last year's inaugural symposium, this year's will be similar but even more grand. We have a full two-day schedule this time around.

Friday, April 17 begins with quickanddirty V: A Graduate Queer Studies Symposium and will feature papers by students from American, Georgetown, George Washington, and Maryland. Friday afternoon, thanks to the efforts of Maryland poet and PhD student Julie Enszer, we will have a poetry reading featuring Regie Cabico, Reginald Harris, and Richard McCann placing their work in conversation with writers from pre-Stonewall queer literary history. At 4:30, Judith Halberstam will deliver the symposium's keynote address, "Queer Negativities." The day will conclude with a reception.

Saturday, April 18 will be a full day of faculty paper sessions on a broad range of subjects (titles and presenters below). The symposium will conclude with an evening of celebration and conviviality at Marilee Lindemann and Martha Nell Smith's home in Takoma Park. We'll have a reception and dinner and, if we're lucky, some quality time under the stars.

We hope you will be able to join us for any or all of these festivities. A condensed version of the schedule is below. We will have a more complete version up on the symposium web site in the next couple of weeks. For those of you not familiar with the Maryland campus, rest assured the web site will have detailed information about parking and building locations.

We invite you to join us for any or all of the two day's events. Due to limitations on space and our desire to create a seminar-type atmosphere on Saturday, however, we ask that you register in advance for that day only. We also hope that you will be able to stay with us for the entire day on Saturday, though we understand that may not be possible in every case. If you would like to attend on Saturday, you can request a registration form by sending an email to: lgbts-dcqueers@umd.edu. Please fill out the form and return it by e-mail to lgbts-dcqueers@umd.edu or by fax to 301.314.2529.

The DC Queer Studies Symposium
A Two-Day Conference at the University of Maryland
April 17-18, 2009, College Park, MD

Free and open to the public

Friday, April 17, 2009
Riggs Alumni Center and McKeldin Library, University of Maryland

9:30 – 10:00 AM
Registration and Welcome (Riggs Alumni Center)

quickanddirty V: A Graduate Queer Studies Symposium
Presentations by graduate students from American University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, and University of Maryland

10:00 – 11:15 AM
Concurrent Graduate Symposium Sessions

Speaking Truth to Power: Lesbian Performances, Politics, and Production (Chaney Library)

Amy Washburn, University of Maryland
Julie R. Enszer, University of Maryland
Maria Vargas, University of Maryland


Deviant at the Core: Reading Queerness in Iconic Texts (AAI Conference Room)

Caroline Sidman, Georgetown University
Melissa Yinger, American University
James Goodwin, University of Maryland


11:30 – 12:45 PM
Concurrent Graduate Symposium Sessions

Heteronormativity: Seductions and Subversions (Chaney Library)

Mary Elizabeth Bazemore, University of Maryland
Reed Cooley, George Washington University
Maria Velazquez, University of Maryland


Paranoia, Trauma, and Laughter: Combating Queer Invisibility in the 1960s and 1970s (AAI Conference Room)

Lisa Chinn, Georgetown University
Yee-Hang Tam, Georgetown University
Rebecca Krefting, University of Maryland


1:00 – 2:15 PM
Lunch on own

2:30 – 4 PM
Queer Writers Read
McKeldin Library 6137, Special Events Room

Regie Cabico, Reginald Harris, Richard McCann

4:30 – 6:30 PM
Keynote Address and Reception
McKeldin Library 6137, Special Events Room

Queer Negativities
Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California, English/Gender Studies

Saturday, April 18, 2009
Benjamin Banneker Room, Adele Stamp Student Union, University of Maryland
(Seating for Saturday events is limited, so pre-registration is required. Contact lgbts-dcqueers@umd.edu for information.)

9:30 – 10:00 AM
Registration and Coffee

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Faculty Paper Session: Queer Pasts

Falstaff’s Fairies: Queer Ravishment in Shakespeare’s Windsor, Holly Dugan, George Washington University

History as Quick Cash: The Female Husband and the Pregnant Man, Mandy Berry, American University

What It Feels Like for a Grrrl: Susan and Emily Dickinson, Martha Nell Smith, University of Maryland

“Where’s That Partner of Mine?”: Ethel Waters and the Management of Black Queer Desire, Samantha Pinto, Georgetown University

12:00 – 1:00 PM
Buffet Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 PM
Faculty Paper Session: Constructing Queer Knowledges

Period Cramps, Madhavi Menon, American University

My Love for Hip Hop Is In Its Queerness, Jeffrey McCune, University of Maryland

Queer Transdisciplinarities, Katie King, University of Maryland

2:30 – 3:00 PM
Break

3:00 – 5:00 PM
Faculty Paper Session: Sex, Sexuality, Politics

Creating Kenyan Intimacies, Keguro Macharia, University of Maryland

Men Get Lean and Mean, Women De-Clutter: Weight Loss, Heteronormative Temporality, and the Thin Contract, Abby Wilkerson, George Washington University

LAUREL: The Irony of Lesbian Identity?, Christina Hanhardt, University of Maryland

Left Melodrama, Elisabeth Anker, George Washington University

7:00 – 10 PM
Reception and Dinner
(Off campus. Please RSVP, by April 3, for the dinner when you register for the symposium.)

DC Queer Studies is a group of faculty from schools in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area formed in 2006 to discuss new works in the field and to exchange, support, and cultivate new ways of engaging with LGBT/Queer/Sexuality Studies across the disciplines and across institutions.

Sponsored by: University of Maryland (Comparative Literature Program, Departments of American Studies, English, and Women’s Studies, Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies in the Department of History, LGBT Studies Program, Office of Undergraduate Studies); American University (College of Arts and Sciences); Georgetown University (Department of English, Graduate School); the George Washington University (Departments of American Studies and English, University Writing Program)

Susan Stryker Film Screening and Lecture

The LGBT Studies Program at the University of Maryland is proud to announce two upcoming events in our seventh annual lecture series, 69/09: The Queer Afterlives of Stonewall.

Susan Stryker - Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria

Thursday, April 2, 2009
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Hornbake 0302J
University of Maryland

Please join us for this film screening of Screaming Queens, a 2005 documentary, co-written and co-directed by Stryker, tells the story of a 1966 transgender riot in San Francisco. Stryker will lead a discussion after the screening.

Susan Stryker - "We Who Are Sexy: The Post-Colonial Transsexual Whiteness of Christine Jorgensen in the Philippines"

Friday, April 3, 2009
4:00 p.m.
Susquehanna 1120
University of Maryland

Susan Stryker is associate professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University and is a pioneer in the field of transgender studies. Her most recent book is Transgender History (2008).

We are grateful to the Office of Undergraduate Studies for its support of the series. Additional sponsors include the departments of American Studies, English, and Theatre, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and the Nathan and Jeanette Miller Center for Historical Studies in the Department of History.

For further information, please contact the LGBT Studies Program.

301.405.5428

lgbts@umd.edu

http://www.lgbts.umd.edu

Click here for directions, parking information, and a campus map.

quickanddirty V - Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

quickanddirty V:
The DC Queer Studies
Graduate Symposium

part of the DC Queer Studies Symposium
at the University of Maryland, College Park

April 17 & 18, 2009

Deadline for submission of materials: January 15, 2009

DC Queer Studies invites submission of proposals for 15-minute presentations in quickanddirty V: The DC Queer Studies Graduate Symposium. Students enrolled in any DC-area graduate program are encouraged to submit proposals for inclusion in the program. We welcome proposals on any aspect of LGBT Studies, queer theory, critical approaches to sexualities, and intersectionality. Maryland’s program in LGBT Studies has held a graduate symposium for the past four years. Again this year, that event is being opened up to students from other institutions and held in conjunction with the scholarly program being arranged by DC Queer Studies, a group of faculty from schools in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.

Selected participants will be notified by February 2, 2009.

Proposals must include name, affiliation, e-mail address, title of paper, a 250-word abstract, and 1-2 page CV. Please send materials by e-mail attachment (Word or PDF only) by January 15, 2009 to lgbts-dcqueers@umd.edu. Put “quickanddirty” in the subject line of your message.

The DC Queer Studies Symposium is a two-day event bringing together scholars from the Washington, DC area to exchange, support, and cultivate new ways of engaging with LGBT/Q/Sexuality Studies across the disciplines. April 17 will include the graduate symposium and the keynote address by Judith Halberstam, professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California and author of In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York University, 2004). April 18 will include paper sessions and roundtable discussions featuring faculty working in LGBT/Q/Sexuality Studies.

The DC Queer Studies Symposium is hosted and sponsored by the University of Maryland and co-sponsored by American University, George Mason University, the George Washington University, Georgetown University, and Howard University. See http://www.lgbts.umd.edu for details.

New Works-in-Progress Series

Fall 2008 DC Queer Studies Works-in-Progress

This series of lectures presents recent work by members of the DC Queer Studies group. DC Queer Studies is a group of faculty from schools in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area. The group works to exchange, support, and cultivate new ways of engaging with LGBT/Q/Sexuality Studies across the disciplines and across institutions.

Dana Luciano, Associate Professor of English, Georgetown University

"Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come: Velvet Goldmine's Queer Archive"

1:30-3:30 PM Friday, October 3, 2008
Department of English, George Washington University
Rome Hall 771
801 22nd Street NW

*Rome Hall is located just off the northeast corner of 22nd and I Streets NW. From the Foggy Bottom Metro: exit the station and walk directly ahead down I Street. After you cross 22nd Street, and pass a small white house, Rome Hall will be on your right. It's a big glass building.

Dana Luciano is the author of Arranging Grief: Sacred Time and the Body in Nineteenth-Century America (New York University Press, 2007).

Event is free and open to the public.

The DC Queer Studies Symposium

The DC Queer Studies Symposium

A Two-Day Conference at the University of Maryland

April 17-18, 2008, College Park, MD

Free and open to the public

Visit our website here.

DC Queer Studies is a group of faculty from schools in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area formed in 2006 to discuss new works in the field and to exchange, support, and cultivate new ways of engaging with LGBT/Queer/Sexuality Studies across the disciplines and across institutions. The symposium is the first public scholarly event organized by the group. Its aim is to showcase the work of faculty and graduate students who are helping to make the national-capital area a leader in interdisciplinary sexuality studies.

Please join us for what promises to be a lively spring festival of scholarly exchange in an interdiscipline that continues to challenge and transform the humanities, the social and behavioral sciences, and the world in which we live.

Thursday, April 17 offers presentations by graduate students in area schools and a keynote address by Roderick A. Ferguson, associate professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota and author of Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique (University of Minnesota, 2004). Friday, April 18 features a full day of faculty papers, roundtables on key words in sexuality studies, and group discussion around the elegant mahogany table in the Crist Boardroom at the Riggs Alumni Center. The symposium is free and will include two receptions as well as a light breakfast and lunch on Friday.

We invite you to join us for any or all of the two day's events. Due to limitations on space and our desire to create a seminar-type atmosphere on Friday, however, we ask that you register in advance for that day only. We also hope that you will be able to stay with us for the entire day on Friday, though we understand that may not be possible in every case. Click here to access a pre-registration form. If you would like to attend on Friday, please fill out the form and return it by e-mail to lgbts-dcqueers@umd.edu or by fax to 301.314.2529. We will contact you if Friday fills up and we are unable to honor your registration request.

Sponsors: University of Maryland (Department of English, LGBT Studies Program, Office of Undergraduate Studies); American University (College of Arts and Sciences); Georgetown University (Department of English); the George Washington University (Columbian College of Arts and Sciences)

Event Coordinator: Marilee Lindemann, University of Maryland, with the assistance of Damion Clark and Mel Michelle Lewis, graduate assistants to the LGBT Studies Program, University of Maryland

Planning Committee: Christina Hanhardt, University of Maryland; Dana Luciano, Georgetown University; Robert McRuer, George Washington University; Madhavi Menon, American University

Pre-registration form for Friday, April 18 is available here

Closets and Claustrophilia

I've started reading Cary Howie's Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in Medieval Literature. I don't think the book's merits could quite be captured/ illuminated/enclosed (?) in our usual discussions, so I'm not suggesting that we discuss it as a group, but I do think it's a fascinating meditation on queerness, desire, phenomenology, the sense of touch, and "unhistorical" approaches to literature (to quote Madhavi's term). It's an odd book, but one that's fun to read. (Think: Povinelli).

Don't just take my word for it: the folks over at In The Middle *love* it. Karl Steel calls it a "heartbreaking" book, and Eileen Joy writes: "The thought and writing of Howie’s book is so radiant, I hesitate to do more than simply urge its reading. Like a secret and profanely holy letter, his book should not be reviewed as such [summarized, evaluated, judged, and perhaps killed], but should, rather, be passed, quietly and with the urgency of desire, from friend to friend." (See http://jjcohen.blogspot.com)

So, friends, I pass it along. (In the spirit of cultivating--i hope--a Judy Blume's Forever kind-of-vibe, rather than say a Bridges of Madison County one).