A Riff on Bodies: Gay Versus Adjunct

Warning: This is writing while thinking/reflecting on images of body...

When I'm in the classroom, I often feel like my discussion of being an adjunct--a part-timer--is more volatile or explosive than talking about being Gay. Also, I am not of the school of outing without reason. I'll out myself, but I won't be blatant--I also won't hide. But, honestly, it just does not come up that much. And if it does, it is brief. Being an adjunct is a different manner.

Being a part-timer directly impacts my pay, ease of access to students, resources, pay, etc. These are tangible elements with physical effects/impacts. And they impact my students more directly than my being gay. At least that's how I see it.

Strangely enough, I also think being a part-timer and being vocal about extraction part-time labor is much more threatening to administration than talking about lgbt/queer issues. Adjunct issues center on economics and exploitation directly, and many queer/lgbt issues do not deal directly with money. Power, yes; money, not as much.

This process is odd for me, but more and more I feel like I'm coming out as an adjunct and being mouthy--sort of--while my Gay identity is pretty content with who/what/where it is. Nobody has threatened my gay self or identity. My adjunct identity, however, stands under constant economic threat and surveillance.

Does this mean my adjunct body is now queer?

the dragged body: a follow up to "the queer body"

Shehun's post was cool. Thought I'd take a second and post an image or two myself. Text coming sometime soon, I hope. :)


(2006 OSU Fall Drag Show)


(Spring 2006)

the queer body

I'll post text soon. Promise.

C's Program Blurb

Here's the blurb from the C's program:

Session: MW.13 on Apr 2, 2008 from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM	Cluster: n/a) Not Applicable
Type: Workshop: Wednesday Morning	Interest Emphasis: sexuality
Level Emphasis: all	Focus: not applicable
What's Queer Got To Do With It This queer-identified round-table engages and explores how being queer intellectuals impacts our professional identities, our performances as composition teachers, and our memberships in English departments. By examining our queer performances as discursive or theatrical, our intellectual work goals and agendas, and our status as exiles (or not), the panelists will actively encourage discussion among the audience and the panelists. This collective exploration is grounded in the intersections of queer theoretical perspectives on performance and Edward Said's discussions of the role of intellectuals. Edward Said states, “The intellectual's role is dialectically, oppositionally to uncover and elucidate the contest [between the powerful and the less powerful, who are subject to silence, frustration, assimilation, or extinction] ... to challenge and defeat both an imposed silence and the normalized quiet of unseen power wherever and whenever possible. For there is a social and intellectual equivalence between this mass of overbearing collective interests and the discourse used to justify, disguise, or mystify its workings while also preventing objects or challenges to it†(Humanism and Democratic Criticism 135). The goal of this panel is to engage in discourse which demystifies the workings of English and Composition as fields and departments. As queer compositionists, we will share, compare, and contrast our experiences, strategies, and insights in the struggle against exile and silence. Panel members will briefly introduce themselves and their locations within the queer, academic, and intellectual communities. Panelists will then describe, discuss, and/or question (for circa 10-20 minutes) what they see as a crucial nexus in the cultural interzone of intellectual, queer, professional, and compositional identities. This may include homophobia, heterosexism, mentoring, horizontal versus hierarchical information exchange, radicalism, the pragmatism of identity groups, and assimilation. After each of the four panel members presents and discusses their nexus of interest and concern, the panelists and the audience will discuss how these concerns are related and impact one another. The panel will consciously focus on identifying and bringing the intersections of Said’s vision of intellectuals and queer performance to the fore. Panel members will intentionally engage the audience to create a dialog about how being queer at these intersections impacts their professional lives. Struggling against silence and creating professional lives also raises issues of assimilation and collaboration with forces and groups who once sought to silence us. Is it possible for us to continue our intellectual and political work when we are no longer exiles? As Said indicates, “Even intellectuals who are lifelong members of a society can, in a manner of speaking, be divided into insiders and outsiders: those on the one hand who belong fully to the society as it is, who flourish in it without an overwhelming sense of dissonance or dissent, those who can be called yea-sayers; and on the other hand, the nay-sayers, the individuals at odds with their society and therefore outsiders and exiles so far as privileges, power, and honors are concerned. The pattern that sets the course for the intellectual as outsider is best exemplified by the condition of exile, the state of never being fully adjusted, always feeling outside the chatty, familiar world inhabited by natives, so to speak, tending to avoid and even dislike the trappings of accommodation and national well-being. Exile for the intellectual in this metaphysical sense is restlessness, movement, constantly being unsettled, and unsettling others. You cannot go back to some earlier and perhaps more stable condition of being at home; and, alas, you can never fully arrive, be at one with your new home or situation†(Representations of the Intellectual 52-3). Panel members will discuss if becoming full and accepted members of our field, of our departments, impacts our ability to be effective and engaged intellectuals. The audience and the panel will discuss if being queer exiles offers us an intellectual and professional edge that more than compensates for our outsider status. Within the discussion of exile or membership, the panelists will consider how queer performance moves us toward our individual intellectual, compositional, and pedagogical goals.

Welcome!

This is the blog for the "What's Queer Got To Do With It" presentation at the coming CCCC's in New Orleans.

The tentative plan for our presentation is listed below:

Apr 2, 2008 from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Coffee Break at 1030

Pre-meeting in room if any recording, etc., needs to set up—get used to the room

Welcome: introduction to panel in General (gz)—5 min

Panel members introduce themselves & their location within queer, academic, & intellectual communities and present the (each panelist 5 minutes/per)—20 min

Time/Topic Breakdown:
9 am or so

5-10 mins Moderator – Introductions; Theoretical Context (Said & Queer Performance)
15 mins Nels self-intro & present critical nexus within queer, academic, & intellectual communities
15 mins Jackie Presents critical nexus etc
15 mins Michael Presents critical nexus etc

10 am or so

15 mins Jonathan Presents critical nexus etc

Summary/ Invite audience feedback (gz) 5 minutes

15 mins Audience Response/ Feedback/Discussion

1030 am

10-15 min break

10 minutes each per speaker to respond to an audience member’s point or what each other speaker said

Jonathan

Michael

11 am

Jackie

Nels

1130 or so
60 mins Exchange with audience

1230 DONE