CFP: Who's "Queer" Anyway? (9/10; SCS, 5/23/02-5/26/02)
As an extension to last year's Queer Caucus panel, "Re-Conditioning the
"Queer": Moving-Image Theory and Culture in the Age of Global
Transnationalism," the SCS Queer Caucus seeks papers for the upcoming SCS
2002 conference (Denver) that again critically engage "queer" in a
global-media(ted) culture. Recent events, such as the protests against
the WTO in Seattle and those against the G-8 in Genoa have highlighted the
often brutally spectacular nature of resistance against the indiscriminate
formation of global capital. It is worthwhile noting, however, that a
specifically queer presence plays little or no role in such actions.
While queer protests around AIDS in the 1980s were part of a fight against
heteronormativity, homophobia, racism and sexism, "queerness" as an
insurgent and integral part of counter-hegemonic movements seems to have
largely dropped out of the global media picture. Instead, representations
of gay lives on television (as in the American sitcom, "Will and Grace")
stand in for the articulation of a queer politics. On a global scale,
AIDS is no longer defined around glbtq identity but is now a worldwide
epidemic whose economic, racial, and national contours are continually
formed within the prescriptive regimes of transnational pharmaceutical
companies.
Within the realm of queer media studies (film, television, news, or the
internet) there has been, in recent years, a growing interest in global
queerness, as evidenced in studies on queer diasporas, queer images in
transnational cinema, and queer-themed television series. For the most
part, however, the debates over such texts have centered around issues of
translatability and recognition; the focus has been on the degree to which
"queerness" and its concomitant issues of identity might or might not move
across national boundaries (work on the success of the British sitcom
"Queer as Folk" in America is one example). Related debates have focused
on how the term "queer" might increasingly be co-opted in the media in
order to identify a niche market of consumers.
The Queer Caucus of the SCS seeks to complicate this mode of inquiry and
expand this set of conflictually interlocking issues by asking for papers
that interrogate the concept of "queerness" within film and media studies.
How has Euro-American glbt-queer politics, theory, and media production
presumed a cultural authority over how "queerness" is negotiated in the
global sphere? How is "queer," as engaged in Euro-American queer studies,
film, television, and internet production still a useful term in the
context of globalisation? How might theorising the "queer" within the
ostensibly "global" serve to complicate both terms? Is the so-called
"radical" queerness of Euro-American queer studies, film, television, and
internet production another spin on cultural imperialism? In other words,
how might "queer" be understood within different historical and cultural
contexts? Is it possible, on the one hand, to retain the term in the
context of Euro-American scholarship and industrial practices
(experimental, independent, or Hollywood production)? On the other hand,
how might "queer" be negotiated and used outside Euro-American contexts
without resorting to calls for authenticity? Given the global saturation
of these dominant modes of production, is it possible to not engage with
the hegemonic use of "queer?"
This panel thus seeks to explore the complicated position/positioning of
"queer" in and through media as it functions on a global scale. We
solicit 250-300-word proposals for 20-minute papers, via e-mail. Please
be sure to send your responses to BOTH David Gerstner
<gerstner@postbox.csi.cuny.edu> AND Yasmin Nair <yasmin@uic.edu>
Deadline: September 10, 2001
Respondents must be members of SCS by the time of the conference.
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Full Information at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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