Queertopia 7.0 | QUEERING PRIDE: LGBT Identities and Affects on the Global Stage

Website: http://groups.northwestern.edu/queerpride/?page_id=1218 Registration: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHR0RTJNUlU2SUVKRmJOU0I1QVU4V3c6MA#gid=0 Friday May 2nd Welcome reception * 8:00pm * Minibar (3341 N. Halsted - Chicago) Free drink tickets - please register for the conference so we purchase drink tix accordingly. Saturday May 3rd Conference * 10:00am – 6:30pm * NU Graduate Student Commons Room 250 (2122 Sheridan Rd, Evanston) [detailed schedule below] Queergasm! Cabaret * 10:30pm – midnight * Studio BE (3110 N. Sheffield, Chicago) Sunday May 4th * Farewell brunch * 11am – 1pm * Location TBA [conference presenters only] CONFERENCE SCHEDULE 9 – 9:45am Breakfast (provided) 10 – 11:30 Contesting Identities at Pride Kareem Khubchandani: Choreographing queer politics in India Melissa Minor Peters: "Out and proud, privately": Authenticity and Risk at Uganda's First LGBT Pride Jason Orne: Queernormativity and the Limits of Pride Andrew Brown: Pride Pilgrims: Queer Refugees at Cape Town Pride 11:45 – 1:15 Sexual Cultures Julienne Obadia: How to Make Your Sex Life Normal: Polyamory, Gay Pride, and Borrowed Legitimacy Eddie Gamboa: “No Limits” Pride and the Limits (?) of Queer Theory Chris Russell: Technosexuality, Progress, and Inevitability Jesus Smith: Sexual Racism in a Gay Community on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Revisiting the Latin Americanization Thesis Online 1:15 – 2:00 Lunch (provided) 2:00 – 3:30 Homophobia’s legacies Feruza Aripova: Mapping the Queer Space in Contemporary Russia: Deconstructing the Soviet Legacy Suzanna Krivulskaya: “From Psychopathy to Asylum: Homosexuality and Immigration, 1975-1990” Benny LeMaster: “Queering Ritual: Performative Reflections on Becoming Ex-Gay” Liz Mount: "Come Out and Do What?": NGO-led Sexual Rights Activism and Identity Presentation in South India. 3:45 – 5:15 Media & Activism Samuel Buelow: When Having Fun IS Political: Levity and Activism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan Ellie Vainker: LGBTQ Representations on the Olympic Stage: Sochi 2014 Roan Coughtry & Drew Cordes: “Queer Liberation from the Roots: Beyond the ‘trickle-down’ approach to social change” Jay Sosa: How to Read a Hate Crime 5:30 – 6:30 Keynote Naisargi Dave: Vibrant Morphologies 6:45 – 8:30 Dinner (provided) Northwestern University’s Queer Pride Graduate Student Association is proud to present its seventh annual graduate student academic festival, Queertopia! which includes our evening showcase, Queergasm! A Cabaret. Pride is spreading. From modest festivals in small Latin American towns to continent-wide celebrations in Europe, communities come together to empower and bring visibility to their LGBT populations. But Pride is fiercely contested. As Martin Manalansan reminds us, to uphold the NYC Stonewall Riots of 1969 as the inception of a global gay rights movement propagates a singular model of globalization, human rights activism, and social change. The proliferation of Pride events across the world may stoke some scholars’ disdain of “global gay” identities, but examination of the material, on-the-ground textures of Pride events in various cities potentially demonstrates how visibility politics and capitulation to gay capitalism are translated and subverted. Pride has also become a political terrain on which other identitarian politics play out. Israel’s bid to host WorldPride has invited critiques about Pinkwashing. The U.S. embassy in Pakistan was chastised for hosting a Pride event. Performance protests during Johannesburg Pride 2012 called attention to class and funding inequalities faced by Black lesbians and transgender people. The rescinding of Chelsea Bradley Manning’s invitation to marshal the San Francisco Pride Parade signals growing homonational sentiments. Pride in major cities in the U.S. feature alternative manifestations of Black and Latin@ Pride, Dyke Marches, and Transgender festivals. Pride has even incited Shame Parades that question whether “pride” is in fact a universalizing affect around which LGBT people can rally. Queering Pride, the title of this symposium, suggests that this notion of Pride is not always a “queer” project and can be co-opted by state, capitalist, or patriarchal entities; but by interrogating this concept through critical and localized research, we can ask if and how Pride can still be deployed toward ethical and transformative ends. Experience artists, activists, and academics across the disciplines discuss the contested, generative, and contradictory practice of staging LGBT identities. We are happy to announce that Naisargi Dave, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto and author of Queer Activism in India: A Story in the Anthropology of Ethics (2012), will be our keynote speaker.