QUEER PUBLICS, QUEER PRAXIS (QP^2), a
symposium hosted by the Steven J. Schochet Endowment for GLBT Studies at the
UofM is putting out a call for papers, panels, workshops, digital projects, and
more addressing
the role of publics and praxis in queer studies and social justice work. The
symposium will be held on Friday April 1st, 2016 here at the UofM.
Abstracts are due November 30th. See below for more information and
to submit an abstract.
Queer Publics, Queer Praxis [QP^2]
Friday, April 1, 2016
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Hosted by the Steven J. Schochet Endowment for GLBT Studies at the
University of Minnesota
Keynote Address by: Lena Palacios, Assistant Professor of Gender, Women
and Sexuality Studies and Chicano/a & Latino/a Studies, University of
Minnesota
“Queer Publics, Queer
Praxis [QP^2]” is a graduate student symposium attending to the relationships
between community engagement, social justice and academic work.
“Community,” or as Miranda Joseph puts it, “the romance of
community,” is often a loaded signifier at the University. Community work is
extracurricular, or imagined to be untouched by the work that goes on at the
University (or by academics who work with/in “communities”).
What then does it mean to engage in queer praxis? To build
and work within queer publics? How is community work co-constitutive with queer
studies?
Who is being engaged and produced through different forms of
engagement? What are the politics of doing so?
To pose the question in a different way: How can and do we
work queerly for justice? What even is queer work? Can we queer work? What are
the processes?
This symposium pays special attention to the relationship
between queer studies (and other modes of critical inquiry) and social justice
work. Queer and social justice work can be: small acts of resistance; direct
action; movements with big bases; movements that fall apart; collectives;
cooperatives; public lectures; program development; making something out of
nothing; working together on something that was forgotten or done wrong. It can
be done by: agitators, reformers, radicals, participatory action researchers,
(auto-)ethnographers, public historians, workshop facilitators, volunteer grant
writers, artists, hustlers, health practitioners, or just about anyone.
We invite papers, panels, workshops, presentations, and
digital projects addressing the role of publics and praxis in queer studies and
social justice work, with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity and
intersectionality. Tell us about a project you are working on, an idea you are
wrestling with, a group you are working with/for, a problem you cannot seem to
solve, or a set of practices that have really worked out. Tell us history about
those who have come before us, those among us who are working it out, or who’s
coming next down the line.
Topics include but are not limited to:
- Transmisogyny, violence, visibility
- Slow death, biopolitics, necropolitics
- Surveillance, policing, militarization
- Transnational sexualities, feminisms, organizing
- HIV/AIDS justice and public health
- Engagement with the many industrial-complexes: medical, prison, nonprofit, academic…
- Citizenship, immigration, refugeeism
- Indigeneity, sovereignty, representation, determination
- Kinship, family, coalition
- Race & racism within fields & movements, separatism, multi-racial movement building
- Labor: manual, emotional, activist, sexual, academic, etc.
- Sex work, survival economies, pleasure economies
- Reproductive justice
- Queer and trans youth
- Disability justice
- Housing and homelessness
- Resilience and resistance
- Public history, public memory, archives
- Digital and social media, rhetoric, connectivity, strategy
Please send a 250 word abstract describing your proposed
presentation, along with a short bio, to Lars Mackenzie at macke157@umn.edu by November 30, 2015.
For those proposing a panel: please send a 250 word abstract
and short bio for each presenter, along with a panel title and brief (>100
word) description of your panel theme.
