Out To Lunch
Out to Lunch is a interdisciplinary lecture series that
focuses on queer studies.
All lectures are scheduled for Wednesdays
at noon at the Rainbow
Center, Student Union 403, unless otherwise posted.
Students have the option to take this as a class, as INTD
3995, but you do not have to be in the class in order to
attend the lecture.
The following are the lectures for the Fall
2008 semester:
August
27: Introductions
to the Class; Panel (this date is open to only students who
have enrolled into the class)
September
3: Eve Shapiro;
Tonight I'm a Gay Male
Cheerleading Lesbian in a Biker Gang: Exploring Drag Performance and
the
Construction of Gender and Sexuality
Synopsis:
In this talk Dr. Shapiro will examine the ways in which drag
performance can, but does
not always, work to unbraid sex, gender, and sexuality. Drawing on an
in-depth
case study of a drag king performance troupe, she chronicles both how
members
experienced gender, sexual, and political identity changes, and how
these changes were mediated by race and class. She examines
whether and how drag performance can be an important site for
counter-hegemonic
identity work.
Biography:
Dr. Eve Shapiro is an assistant professor-in-residence in Women’s
Studies at
the University of Connecticut. Her activism, research and teaching is
guided by
a theoretical and empirical interest in how individuals and communities
imagine
and create social change at individual, collective, and societal
levels. Of particular interest, as both an
activist and scholar, are transgender and queer movements.
Dr. Shapiro received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of
California, Santa
Barbara and has received a number of awards for her scholarship,
including two
University of California Graduate Division dissertation awards, the
American
Sociological Association sexualities section Graduate Paper Award, and
an
honorable mention for the 2004 Martin Levine Dissertation Fellowship.
Her recent research on a drag performance troupe illuminated how drag
can,
but does not always, serve as an identity incubator in which
participants are
able and encouraged to interrogate, play with, and sometimes adopt new
identities. Performing gender in the politicized, feminist context of
The
Disposable Boy Toys shaped the gender, sexual, and political identities
of
participants in fundamental and varied ways, suggesting that
oppositional
communities are an important venue for identity work. Building on this,
Dr. Shapiro’s new research examines the ways in which
new technologies are shaping gender and sexuality norms in society.
September
10: John –Manuel Andriote; Out of Sight, Out of Mind: America's
Response to the
HIV-AIDS Pandemic, 1981-2008
Synopsis:
From the first reports in 1981 of a strange and deadly new disease
killing
formerly healthy young gay middle-class men in Los Angeles, New York
and San
Francisco, HIV-AIDS has been seen as a disease of 'The Other.' Those
affected
by it have been stigmatized and marginalized to preserve the false
belief of
white, heterosexual middle-class Americans that they are uniquely
protected
against the afflictions of racial and sexual minorities with whom they
are
uncomfortable. Even as the country has given billions of dollars to
address HIV-AIDS
in the world's hardest-hit areas, particularly Africa, there is an
unspoken
sense of relief that it is not really 'our' problem. But the
ever-increasing
number of new HIV infections in the U.S. reveal that HIV-AIDS is and
always has
been an American problem--no matter how hard we try to ignore it.
Biography: As
a freelance
journalist since the 1980s, Andriote has specialized in writing about
HIV-AIDS,
health and medicine, and popular culture for magazines and newspapers
including
he Washington Post. He
is the author of
four books, including Victory Deferred:
How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America (University of Chicago
Press), winner of the 2000 Lambda
Literary
Awards Editors’ Choice Award and hailed by Kirkus
Reviews as “the most important AIDS chronicle since Randy
Shilts’ And the Band Played On.”
Andriote’s
reporting work on HIV-AIDS has taken him across the United States, to
Africa,
Haiti and the Eastern Caribbean, and to international conferences in
Canada and
Sweden.
In
2008, the
Smithsonian Institution acquired Andriote’s Victory
Deferred reporting archives—interview tapes and transcripts,
manuscript
drafts, correspondence and other materials used to develop the book—for
the
permanent scholarly collection of the National Museum of American
History. Despite
his focus
on a "serious" subject like HIV-AIDS, Andriote drew on a lifelong
love of music to author another book, Hot
Stuff: A Brief History of Disco (HarperCollins), a history of
1970s dance
music and culture. Publishers Weekly
praised Andriote's "excellent writing," while Gannett News Service
called Hot Stuff “a
fizzy champagne toast of a book.”
Andriote
regularly
speaks to audiences across the country and has been featured in
interviews with
the news media, including the Los Angeles
Times, the Chicago Tribune,
National Public Radio, C-SPAN, the BBC and Radio Netherlands. Whether
discussing HIV/AIDS in Africa or dance music, Andriote offers a
positive
message about celebrating life even in the face of adversity.
Andriote
holds a
master’s degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of
Journalism; a
bachelor's degree in English from Gordon College, Wenham, MA.; and a
high
school diploma from the Norwich Free Academy, Norwich, CT. After 22
years in
Washington, DC, Andriote in 2007 returned to Norwich, to open a
“city-style”
coffeehouse/lounge called Downtown Joe.
September
17: Michael Luongo; Gay
Travels in the Muslim World:
A reading and Q&A
Synopsis:
Michael Luongo will read from Gay Travels in the Muslim
World, a collection of works he edited and which was published by
Haworth Press
in 2007. The book is a collection of works by 18 gay men,
Muslim and
non-Muslim. Michael writes of his experiences in Afghanistan
and other
Muslim countries in his preface and chapter for the book.
Michael has
also been to Iraq, and will discuss this in the presentation.
Weblink:
www.gaytravelinthemuslimworld.com
Biography:
Michael Luongo is a freelance writer, editor and
photographer whose work has ranged for publications from the New York
Times,
Bloomberg News, the Advocate, Out Traveler to Gay City News, and he has
reported on gay issues in the war zones of Iraq and
Afghanistan. He is
the author of several travel books, including the groundbreaking
Haworth Gay
Travels in the Muslim World. He also co-edited the Continuum
Press book,
Gay Tourism, in 2002, the first academic book on the gay travel
industry.
Michael is an adjunct professor at New York University, teaching travel
writing, and also teaches at Gotham Writers Workshop. He is
based in New
York, but also lives part-time in Argentina, writing the Frommer's
Buenos Aires
guidebook. A frequent traveler, he has been to more than 80
countries and
all 7 continents, with Latin America and the Middle East as his
favorite parts
of the world. He has a Masters in Urban Planning from Rutgers
University,
and his research thesis focused on the relationship between HIV and sex
tourism
in New York City. More on Michael is at www.michaelluongo.com
<http://www.michaelluongo.com/> .
Evening
Event: Book reading & selling (6 pm-Rainbow Center) with
Michael Luongo
September
24: Curt Rogers; Gay
Male Victims of Domestic Violence
Synopsis:
Through personal story telling, formal lecture and question and answer
session,
the topic of gay male victims of domestic violence will be discussed. The participants will gain
an understanding
GBT inclusive analysis of domestic violence; Recognizing the reality
and
severity of GBT domestic violence; Identifying similarities and
differences
between GBT and mainstream DV; Understanding main barriers to effective
services for the GBT Community.
Biography:
Curt Rogers is the Founder and Executive Director of the Gay Men’s
Domestic
Violence Project (GMDVP). Under his leadership, GMDVP was first to
document the
prevalence of gay male domestic violence and provided the first shelter
option
in the United States for gay male victims of domestic violence. GMDVP
focuses
its efforts on direct services, aggressive community education and
policy
advocacy. GMDVP
co-founded the GLBT
Domestic Violence Coalition and Ending Domestic Violence In Men’s
Lives. Rogers
has served as an appointed member of the Massachusetts Governor’s
Council on
Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence since 1997 and chaired the Male
Victim
Study Group. The United States Department of Justice honored GMDVP as
an
Innovative New Program.
October
8: Phoebe Godfrey;
Eschatological Sexuality:
Miscegenation and the 'Homosexual Agenda' from Brown vs. Board of
Education
(1954) to Lawrence vs. Texas (2003).
Synopsis:
This presentation will explore the connections between racism and
homophobia by
looking at two seminal court cases- Brown vs. Board of Education (1954)
and
Lawrence vs. Texas (2003). Special attention will be paid to
the use of
racist and homophobic language by the religious right as well as the
fears
expressed by white Christian heterosexual parents in relation
to their
children as articulated by the banning of two children's books - one in
the
1950's and one in the 2000's.
Biography:
Dr. Phoebe Godfrey is a Professor -in-Residence in Sociology at
UConn.
She researches and writes on a wide variety of topics but the common
theme in
all is to critically examine the constructions and articulations of
power
through ideologies of race, social class, gender,
sexuality…etc.
October
15: Vicki L. Eaklor; Outsiders/Insiders: Mainstreaming
LGBT Rights
Synopsis:
An overview of the struggle to achieve equal rights for
LGBT people in the U.S., with emphasis on the years since 1980 and the
dilemmas
of “insider” vs. “outsider” status.
I
would offer an overview of events, issues, and key organizations and
people,
and then lead a discussion.
Possible
discussion topics:
- What
are the main differences between rights advocates and liberationists? What are the origins of
those differences?
- What
is lost as some rights are gained?
Can rights be gained only piecemeal or is an
all-encompassing act possible?
- How
mainstream is same-sex marriage?
- What
is “equality” and how will we know when it is achieved?
Biography: Vicki
L. Eaklor is
Professor of History at Alfred University, where she teaches courses in
American history, culture, and sexuality.
She
received her PhD in history from
Washington University in St. Louis after earning MA degrees in both
history and
music at that institution. She
is a
frequent participant on panels concerning LGBT history, theory, and
teaching
methods and has received two Excellence in Teaching Awards at AU.
Her
comprehensive survey, Queer
America: A GLBT History of the Twentieth Century,
was published last
spring by Greenwood Press, and in 2006 she edited the memoirs of HRC
founder
Steve Endean, published as Bringing
Lesbian and Gay Rights Into the Mainstream: Twenty Years of Progress
(Haworth Press). Other works include “Where Have We Been, Where Are We
Going,
and Who Gets to Say?” in Modern American
Queer History, and “How
Queer-Friendly Are U.S.
History Textbooks?” http://HistoryNewsNetwork.org/articles/3200.html.
October
22: Mab Segrest; Queers and (In)Sanity: The View from the
Milledgeville
Asylum
Synopsis:
This is a presentation of my current research on the state mental
hospital at Milledgeville,
Georgia, which claims in the 1950s to have been the largest in the
world, with
the largest graveyard of disabled people. I am writing a
social history
of the institution from its origins in the slave state of Georgia
especially
noting how race, gender, class, sexuality and nationality help shape
its
history and what this history shows us about political vs biological
definitions of "mind" and "sanity."
Biography: Mab Segrest is Fuller-Maathai Professor of Gender and
Women's
Studies at Connecticut College and is chair of the Dept of Gender and
Women's
Studies there, a position she has held for six years. Prior
to resuming
college teaching, she worked as an activist and organizer in a range of
social
justice movements and organizations. She spent seven years
working
against Klan and neo-Nazi organizations in North Carolina and
nationally, the
subject of her book Memoir of a Race Traitor, that won the Lambda
Editor's
Choice Award in 1995. She is also author of My Mama's Dead
Squirrel:
Lesbian Essays on Southern Culture, a collection of her work from the
1970s and
1980s on Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South; and Born to
Belonging:
Writings on Spirit and Justice."
October
29: Patricia Gozemba & Karen Kahn; Courting Equality in
Massachusetts
Synopsis: Authors
Gozemba and Kahn, using an iMovie and slides, will trace the judicial,
political, and social movement for marriage equality in Massachusetts
and the
struggle to preserve and expand it. Beginning with the 2003 Goodridge decision, they will analyze
the challenges and victories of the movement culminating in the
expansion of
marriage equality rights for out-of-state same-sex couples in
Massachusetts in
2008.
Biography:
The 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision in Goodridge v.
the Department
of Public Health that led to marriage equality in the state
heralded in a
new civil rights era. Patricia A. Gozemba and Karen Kahn will present
at Out to
Lunch on this equality victory.
In
their book Courting Equality: A Documentary History of
America's First Legal
Same-Sex Marriages (Beacon
Press,
2007), Gozemba and Kahn describe the efforts of gay,
lesbian, bi-sexual
and transgender activists to secure family and parenting rights. Using
a 9 min.
iMovie of the over-100 photos in their book, the authors share with
viewers the
patriotic import of the victory and the lasting impacts on families.
The
excitement of the history will be captured in brief illustrated
readings from Courting Equality.
Gozemba,
a professor emerita of English and women's studies at Salem State
College, is a
founding member of The History Project, which has been documenting
lesbian,
gay, bi-sexual and transgender movements in Boston since 1980. She
co-authored Pockets of Hope: How Students and
Teachers
Change the World (2002). Kahn, former editor of Sojourner:
The Women's
Forum, an activist, community-based, feminist newspaper, also
edited Frontline
Feminism: Essays from Sojourner's First 20 Years (1996). The two were married in
September 2005 and live in Salem, Mass.
Courting
Equality
features
photos by Marilyn Humphries, an independent photojournalist whose work
has
appeared in the New York Times, The Progressive, Bay Windows,
and the Boston
Phoenix.
November
5: Donna Rose; Transgender 101: A First-Person Perspective
Brief
Synopsis: The topic of "transgender" is becoming more and
more
common in mainstream society: in schools, workplaces, media,
politics.
However, it is a subject that remains steeped in misconception and
sigma.
People remain intrigued by the journey across the gender
frontier.
Nationally renowned transgender author and advocate Donna Rose will
provide a
unique and fascinating first-person explanation of "Transgender", of
the profound impact of sex/gender on our lives, and a unique
first-person
perspective of the difference between life as a man and as a woman.
Biography:
Donna Rose is a nationally respected author, speaker, and activist on
transgender and transsexual issues. She spent the first 40
years of her
life as a man: a husband, a successful athlete, a father, a
businessman, a
brother and son. She struggled with the knowledge that she
was not living
the life that felt right and natural, and in 1998 started the process
of making
changes in her life.
Today
Donna
is one of the most visible and active transgender women in the
country.
She has served on the boards of national non-profit organizations
including the
Human Rights Campaign, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
(GLAAD),
the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), and several
others. She has helped to shape corporate workplace policy
for
transgender employees as defined by HRC’s Corporate Equality
Index. She
has been featured in USA Today, Fortune, Marie Claire, Investor’s
Business
Daily, the Advocate and dozens of other local and national
publications.
Her award-winning memoir, Wrapped In Blue, remains a significant source
of
information and inspirations. Her website is a well-known
resource.
And, she is invited to share her fascinating story at universities,
workplaces,
and conferences around the country.
Evening
Talk (7pm Student
Union Theater) with Donna Rose:
The Final Frontier: Confessions
of a Transgender Warrior (Extra
Credit)
Synopsis:
Donna Rose has played a significant role in many of the significant
achievements of transgender advocacy in recent years. As a
member of the
Human Rights Campaign Business Council she helped to establish
corporate
workplace standards for transgender employees. As an HRC
Board member she
resigned in protest of the organizations stance over the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act. She serves on the boards of GLAAD,
the National
Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and is involved in many other
efforts. Donna explains where transgender activism has come
from and
where it's going on campuses, in politics, in workplaces, and in
broader
culture.
November
12: Mary Burke; Transforming Care, Transforming Culture:
Transgenderism,
Medicine, Advocacy, and the Law
Synopsis: This project explores changes in Western notions of gendered
embodiment and the role of institutions as governing forces therein,
focusing
on the issue of transgenderism as a specific case. Using a combination
of discourse
analysis, interviewing, and participant observation, I examine the
relationship
between the medico-psychological community and transgender activism,
with a
specific focus on how these interactions affect discourse about
transgenderism,
and gender more broadly, in the arenas of medicine and advocacy as well
as in
other areas such as law and popular culture. Given the central role of
medico-psychological discourse and treatment, I explore how
professionals,
clients, and activists understand their relationships to one another
and their
roles in the broader institutions that shape trans diagnosis and
treatment. I
also explore how the construction of transsexualism as individual
psychopathology
shapes the legal and social rights and recognition of trans
people.
Finally, in the course of examining these various issues, I consider
how the
work of these groups influences, and is influenced by, Western
discourse on
transgenderism and sex and gender, more generally.
Biography:
Mary C. Burke is a queer activist and a gender, sexualities, and
social movements scholar. She is the co-author of a chapter on
queering
the family in New Sexuality Studies: A Reader (New York: Routledge).
She is a phD
student in sociology at UConn and is currently writing her dissertation
on the influence of transgender activism on medical and mental
health discourse and treatment of trans people.
November
19: Matthew Link; The Blurry
Sexual and Gender Lines
in Pre-European Contact Hawaii
Synopsis: A look at the bisexual and polysexual mores of ancient
Hawaii, before
contact with Europeans. The concepts of akine (same-sex relationships)
and how
they pertained to the Hawaiian royalty as a whole class of revered
concubines,
as well as the concept of the mahu (transvestite gender roles) that are
still
alive in Hawaii today. A short but comprehensive look at how old Hawaii
society
was constructed in terms of class, gender, kapu (taboo) laws,
spirituality, and
sexuality before the influence of Western missionaries and culture.
Biography: Matthew
Link is the former Editorial Director of The Out Traveler
magazine (published by The Advocate and OUT),
the world's largest
gay publication. Matthew is an award-winning travel writer, documentary
filmmaker, and publisher of the Rainbow Handbook Hawaii,
which he first
wrote while living on The Big Island of Hawaii in the 1990s. He was
destined to
be a travel writer, having grown up on his father's 52-foot sailboat
during his
teenage years, cruising around Southeast Asia and the Pacific. He has
at
various times called Hong Kong, the Philippines, Micronesia, Papua New
Guinea,
and New Zealand home - as well as traveling to 60 countries and
Antarctica. He
has written pieces for Newsweek, Time, Forbes, Conceirge.com,
MSNBC,
Men's Health, Men's Fitness, The Advocate,
Business Traveler
International, Real Simple, and Cooking Light,
as well as working
personally for years with guidebook pioneer Arthur Frommer at his
travel
magazine. He has also contributed chapters to four
travel anthology
books, and has interviewed the likes of Robert Kennedy, Jr., Barney
Frank, Gore
Vidal, Armistead Maupin, and Edmund White. Media appearances include
CNN, NBC,
and Bloomberg radio. As a filmmaker, Matthew has produced award-winning
social
documentaries that have shown in international festivals and on PBS
stations,
and he is also an avid kayaker, hiker, snowboarder, and skin diver.
Africa is
his all-time favorite travel destination.
December
3: Graciela Quiñones-Rodriguez; TBA
Additional
Information-Soon to be posted.
Last Updated: August 2008
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