As the UC Berkeley Queer Ethnic Studies Working Group we hope to create an intellectual and creative space for an interrogation of the ways in which the conceptual categories of race and queerness are produced, performed and engaged in the fields of the psychic, the social, and the material. By "adding a little color" into queer theorizing's privileged (white) subject/object and deconstructing the heteronormativity of much of ethnic studies scholarship--especially trajectories invested in nationalist frameworks-- we hope to participate in a reconstructive mapping of the mutuality and analytic strategies locating multiple categories of differentiation (including gender, class, nation, and geography) simultaneously.
That is, we want to know: what does it mean, in the context of uneven race and class relations, to become queer in opposition to other queers?
To this end, we are planning an interdisciplinary conference for October 29-31, 1999, to examine the intersections of and slippages between discourses of sexuality and discourses of race, racialization, and ethnicity. We thus hope to provide a critical forum for dialogue (and conflict) under the rubric of "Performing Unnatural Acts." The organizers are informed by multiple strategies (queer, feminist, poststructuralist, and critical race theories) and are interested in the politics of performativity and performance, cultural production, the politics of identification, and of course, the politics of politics. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
· CLAIMS TO CITIZENSHIP AND NATIONALISMS: Black Nations, Queer Nations, defining nationhood, borders, immigration, post-nationalisms, modernity. · QUEER / DIASPORAS: "homeland," "migranthood," transgression, domesticity, postcoloniality. · PUBLIC SPACE AND MORAL PANICS: sex panics and white flight, zoning laws in urban neighborhoods, public displays of queerness. · WHAT HAPPENS WHEN QUEER GOES TRANSNATIONAL? questions of travel, tourism, globalization, the (concept of ) "queer" crossing borders. · THEORIZING THE CYBORG: transgendered, transsexual, issues of technology, inorganicity, "unnaturalness." · DECONSTRUCTING (QUEER) WHITENESS · QUEER IN THE ACADEMY: visibility politics, disciplinarity. · REPRESENTATION AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION: questions of "authenticity," the market, pop culture, visual culture, textuality, intersections of modernity, race, nation, gender, and sexuality. · SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND STREET/PUBLIC PERFORMANCE · YOUTH CULTURE
There are, or course, plenty of additional issues (visibility, criminality, et cetera) that can be addressed under the rubric of "Performing Unnatural Acts," and we encourage submissions reflecting a broad range of historical locations, areas of study and theoretical positions. We are also looking for innovative interpretations of our conference title/framework, as well as submissions of art, video/film work and performances.
Deadline for submissions is June 1, 1999. Send four copies of your one-page (750-word) proposal and a cover letter with your name, department, institution, address, phone number, and e-mail address to:
Queer Ethnic Studies Working Group, 506 Barrows Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
OR
Karina Cespedes (lissette at uclink4,berkeley.edu) Vernadette Gonzalez (dette at uclink4.berkeley.edu) Mimi Nguyen (queenmeem at aol.com) Mattie Richardson (udora at uclink4.berkeley.edu)
(Please do not e-mail abstracts to our individual addresses.)
Visit the Queer Ethnic Studies web-site at: http://members.aol.com/Worsethanq/ with a launch date set for early March.