I am still very pleased with how the workshop turned out. I think the four presenters each did very well, and each one of them raised a series of issues which, in and of itself, could have been the focus of a workshop or panel.
As was discussed near the end of the workshop, hopefully many if not all of the attendees and speakers will submit their own proposals next year for queer-themed workshops. Or lesbian themed. Or bisexual themed. Or sex and composition themed. Unless there are more people proposing, there will not be as many workshops. Similarly, it might be a good idea to network so that we have some idea of how many queer people are presenting, proposing, and getting rejected.
I did enjoy the less formal atmosphere, and I enjoyed the exchanges between all of the participants. It is in this kind of place and space where many of us have the chance to finally network with others who are like us. Or at least they are more like us than many of our colleagues.
Finally, a big thank you to Jon, Jackie, Michael, and Nels for showing up, participating, and presenting so many interesting ideas, and an equally powerful thanks to the attendees! Hopefully y'all will inundate the C's with your materials next year!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Reviewing Identity on Sissy Street
Currently, I am staying with friends on St. Anne's in the French Quarter. I was told that this is referred to as "Sissy Street." Normally, I would be offended by that, but since I am here--away from my normal place and space of comfort--I find it pretty funny. I also find it comforting.
More comforting is walking down a street and seeing the rainbow flags, knowing that there are five or six gay bars within a stones throw, and that most men living on this block are gay. That makes me feel comfortable and safe in a way that I have not felt before.
I have never lived in a "gay ghetto," nor have I sought them out. I have always avoided large cities like the plague, but cities are usually the only places which have said ghettos. So avoiding big cities means avoiding gay enclaves.
Being in a totally new place without my partner has been pushing me to rethink just what it is to be gay/queer/etc. This has little to do with theory. This has everything to do with the actual location of my body, how it feels emotionally, and how relaxed I am.
I can honestly and proudly say I really, really like being here. If I could afford to sanely live in a gay ghetto I would. While it may make me sound like a sheep or a conformist, I cannot deny what is true: I want to live around people like me: LGBT folks. The sense of safety, absence of fear, or deep location of normalcy is truly astonishing.
Who knows how I will feel tomorrow, but I sure feel good right now. I like knowing that many of the people around me are like me. After decades of feeling alienated, isolated, or hermitted--by choice--I now have a sense of how other folks live.
I also know there are serious issues of race and class that are not addressed here--that the world on the other side of Rampart is very different. I just got here. I have had less than five hours sleep today, and that was on a plane. My analytical skills are not as honed as they need to be to grapple with race and class. I just did not want to pretend as if they do not exist or as if I am ignoring them.
More comforting is walking down a street and seeing the rainbow flags, knowing that there are five or six gay bars within a stones throw, and that most men living on this block are gay. That makes me feel comfortable and safe in a way that I have not felt before.
I have never lived in a "gay ghetto," nor have I sought them out. I have always avoided large cities like the plague, but cities are usually the only places which have said ghettos. So avoiding big cities means avoiding gay enclaves.
Being in a totally new place without my partner has been pushing me to rethink just what it is to be gay/queer/etc. This has little to do with theory. This has everything to do with the actual location of my body, how it feels emotionally, and how relaxed I am.
I can honestly and proudly say I really, really like being here. If I could afford to sanely live in a gay ghetto I would. While it may make me sound like a sheep or a conformist, I cannot deny what is true: I want to live around people like me: LGBT folks. The sense of safety, absence of fear, or deep location of normalcy is truly astonishing.
Who knows how I will feel tomorrow, but I sure feel good right now. I like knowing that many of the people around me are like me. After decades of feeling alienated, isolated, or hermitted--by choice--I now have a sense of how other folks live.
I also know there are serious issues of race and class that are not addressed here--that the world on the other side of Rampart is very different. I just got here. I have had less than five hours sleep today, and that was on a plane. My analytical skills are not as honed as they need to be to grapple with race and class. I just did not want to pretend as if they do not exist or as if I am ignoring them.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Identity
I'm working on my presentation now, and I remembered that I wanted to post an initial introduction over here. When I first applied to graduate school, I wrote a statement saying that I wanted to study identity. Yeah, I was rejected from most places. And it feels silly to title a post with identity and to say that I am going to be talking about the shifts and flows of our sexual and academic identities in my talk, but that is what I am going to do.
I am an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Writing at the University of Hartford, where I am also Director of First-Year Reading and Writing. Next year, I will become Director of Gender Studies. I'm really excited about that one. I have an eclectic background: an MA in Women's Studies and an MA in Comparative Cultural Studies, both from Ohio State, and an PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In my academic life, I have been all over the place and taken on various identities.
I have been out for the entirety of my adult life, sometimes wavering between identifying as queer and gay, which I will discuss in my talk. Right now, I'm pretty much living the privileged, middle-class life.
One of the things I want to spend some time talking about is the idea of shame and how that shapes who we are. I will borrow from Michael Warner on this. Perhaps I'll just post the notes for my talk this weekend?
At any rate, there's a little of who I am. Though my identities shift over time, I don't think much will change by next Wednesday!
I am an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Writing at the University of Hartford, where I am also Director of First-Year Reading and Writing. Next year, I will become Director of Gender Studies. I'm really excited about that one. I have an eclectic background: an MA in Women's Studies and an MA in Comparative Cultural Studies, both from Ohio State, and an PhD in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In my academic life, I have been all over the place and taken on various identities.
I have been out for the entirety of my adult life, sometimes wavering between identifying as queer and gay, which I will discuss in my talk. Right now, I'm pretty much living the privileged, middle-class life.
One of the things I want to spend some time talking about is the idea of shame and how that shapes who we are. I will borrow from Michael Warner on this. Perhaps I'll just post the notes for my talk this weekend?
At any rate, there's a little of who I am. Though my identities shift over time, I don't think much will change by next Wednesday!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
what is a public
Gregory asked me to post this here, so I thought I would. It's from a comment on a previous post in which Gregory asked about publics:
Are you familiar with the work of Nancy Fraser? She discusses the word public and it's multiple meanings. Michael Warner, who also does queer theory, does as well.
Fraser has four definitions of public: 1) related to the state, 2) accessible to everyone, 3) concerning everyone, and 4) having to do with the common good. Warner has three definitions: 1) "a kind of social totality," 2) a concrete audience, like at a theatre or public speech, and 3) the kind of public that comes together in relation to a text.
Warner focuses on the last one in "Publics and Counterpublics." Latour, too, focuses on the notion of a public being created by a text, if I understand what I've been told about him correctly.
So, I think when we ask what kind of public we are addressing as public intellectuals, I'd say at least 4:
1. The classroom (a space that is both public and private)
2. Our colleagues/the discipline (through texts, such as our talk at 4C's, our blogs, and in journal articles)
3. The general public, if accessible, though perhaps that isn't possible except in the most watered down sense. I'm imagining articles for magazines, blogging, etc.
4. Counterpublics, or those publics that are set as alternatives to the mainstream (though our discipline is also a counterpublic, as Warner argues). I'm thinking here, though, of queer publics.
Arguably, though, a job of a public intellectual is not just to speak to publics, but to help foster public spaces so that others can speak. At least, that's my belief, especially after reading Christian Weissner's book Moving Beyond Academic Discourse and the work of Herbert Marcuse.
Are you familiar with the work of Nancy Fraser? She discusses the word public and it's multiple meanings. Michael Warner, who also does queer theory, does as well.
Fraser has four definitions of public: 1) related to the state, 2) accessible to everyone, 3) concerning everyone, and 4) having to do with the common good. Warner has three definitions: 1) "a kind of social totality," 2) a concrete audience, like at a theatre or public speech, and 3) the kind of public that comes together in relation to a text.
Warner focuses on the last one in "Publics and Counterpublics." Latour, too, focuses on the notion of a public being created by a text, if I understand what I've been told about him correctly.
So, I think when we ask what kind of public we are addressing as public intellectuals, I'd say at least 4:
1. The classroom (a space that is both public and private)
2. Our colleagues/the discipline (through texts, such as our talk at 4C's, our blogs, and in journal articles)
3. The general public, if accessible, though perhaps that isn't possible except in the most watered down sense. I'm imagining articles for magazines, blogging, etc.
4. Counterpublics, or those publics that are set as alternatives to the mainstream (though our discipline is also a counterpublic, as Warner argues). I'm thinking here, though, of queer publics.
Arguably, though, a job of a public intellectual is not just to speak to publics, but to help foster public spaces so that others can speak. At least, that's my belief, especially after reading Christian Weissner's book Moving Beyond Academic Discourse and the work of Herbert Marcuse.
Documenting the Discussion
So we are thinking about recording the presentation which we give at the C's with audio and/or video, but we do not want to limit participation or make people feel uncomfortable--as if they are being surveilled. As such, the current plan is to video our opening statements comments and our replies to each other.
Does this seem like a reasonable approach--one that will not interfere with participation?
Does this seem like a reasonable approach--one that will not interfere with participation?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Queer Lever
Here's an uncomfortable question: As LGBT/Queer folk, do we ever make use of our queer status nature in order to give us an edge for committees, publication, hiring, etc. That is, do we extract value from our "oppressed" status and get more mileage out of it than other folks?
An example. Many years ago, I worked for a company where the manager was queer. This meant that when there were problems, stress, etc., the hetero folks were usually on the firing line before the queer folks. This also meant that when queer folks messed up, in a minor situation, it was often overlooked; if it could not be overlooked, then you were made to pay more severely than others. My point: as a queer in this position, I had an easier time getting and keeping the job by virtue of being gay--that's it. But I was also held to higher standards and expected to enforce the homo-hegemony, as it were. [I want to note here that all of the queer folks, me included, at this job site were white--so I have no clue how race played into the situation.]
If we have the chance to do so in Academia, do we exploit such situations?
Such issues demonstrate to our peers, students, and bosses who and what we are. And I think it is important to consider some of the queer benefits/perks as much as the oppressions and problems.
An example. Many years ago, I worked for a company where the manager was queer. This meant that when there were problems, stress, etc., the hetero folks were usually on the firing line before the queer folks. This also meant that when queer folks messed up, in a minor situation, it was often overlooked; if it could not be overlooked, then you were made to pay more severely than others. My point: as a queer in this position, I had an easier time getting and keeping the job by virtue of being gay--that's it. But I was also held to higher standards and expected to enforce the homo-hegemony, as it were. [I want to note here that all of the queer folks, me included, at this job site were white--so I have no clue how race played into the situation.]
If we have the chance to do so in Academia, do we exploit such situations?
Such issues demonstrate to our peers, students, and bosses who and what we are. And I think it is important to consider some of the queer benefits/perks as much as the oppressions and problems.
What is Public?
When we talk about Said's notions--and our reflections and remixes of it--about public intellectuals, what do we mean by public?
Is the classroom enough?
Should we limit our speech and activism to the campus?
Are the borders of professional journals and publication far enough?
How about YouTube? Should we go there? Is it even far enough?
And when we go "public" with our intellectualism, what do we do with our language? Do we keep the Spivakisms, Babaisms, and Derridaisms which we may know but mean nothing to most people? Do we write at the 8th grade level so most of America can grok what we are saying? How much do we alter our voice for our audience?
When we work at being public intellectuals, it seems essential that we grasp exactly what we mean when we use the word public--and the implied audience--as well as what we mean by intellectual.
Is the classroom enough?
Should we limit our speech and activism to the campus?
Are the borders of professional journals and publication far enough?
How about YouTube? Should we go there? Is it even far enough?
And when we go "public" with our intellectualism, what do we do with our language? Do we keep the Spivakisms, Babaisms, and Derridaisms which we may know but mean nothing to most people? Do we write at the 8th grade level so most of America can grok what we are saying? How much do we alter our voice for our audience?
When we work at being public intellectuals, it seems essential that we grasp exactly what we mean when we use the word public--and the implied audience--as well as what we mean by intellectual.
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