Intersections: An Inaugural Black Queer Sexuality Studies Graduate Student Conference

Keynote Address: Professor Kara Keeling, University of Southern California

Location: Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Date: October 20, 2012

The first annual Black Queer Sexuality Studies Graduate Student Conference, to be held October 20, 2012, is intended to create a public forum for dialogue on innovative research across a number of disciplines and fields that interrogate the intersections of blackness and queerness. We invite graduate students to present their work during a one-day conference.  The proposed theme of the first annual Black Queer Sexuality Studies Graduate Student Conference is “Intersections,” a theme that aims to illumine the interdisciplinary work characteristic of black queer sexuality studies. 

We are delighted to announce that Prof. Kara Keeling will give the keynote address for this inaugural conference. Keeling is an Associate Professor in the Division of Critical Studies in the School of Cinematic Arts and in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include African American film, theories of race, sexuality and gender in cinema, critical theory, cultural studies and African cinema.

Intersections: An Inaugural Black Queer Sexuality Studies Graduate Student Conference

Schedule of Events

8:30 am - 9:00 am: Registration

9:00 am - 9:20 am: Welcome/ Opening Remarks

9:30 am - 10:50 am: Panel One - Conceptualizing Identities/ Desires

•   Jamal Batts (American Studies, California State University: Fullerton): "'Faggots and Dope': Gil Scott-Heron and the Post-Home Life of Queer Black Desires."

•   Octavio Gonzalez (English, Rutgers University): "Reginald Shepherd's 'Misfit Minority' Politics."

•  Casely Coan (Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University): “It Feels (W)ri(gh)t(e) to Me: Audre Lorde, Identity and Academic Writing.”

•   Heather Vermeulen (African American Studies/ American Studies, Yale University): "‘Always Privily Carryed Corn’: Lordean Erotics in the Diaries of Thomas Thistlewood (Vineyard Penn, 1750-1751)."

11:00 am - 12:20 pm: Panel Two - Literary Queerings

•   Emily Owens (African and African American Studies, Harvard University): "Considering Suicide, Living Forever: The Many Incarnations of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf."

•   Lydia Nelson (Performance Studies, University of Texas- Austin): "Queering the Dozens: Langston Hughes's ASK YOUR MAMA."

•   Kristyl Dawn Tift (Theatre and Film Studies, University of Georgia): "Queering the Politics of Black Respectability: Plays of the Black Arts Movement."

•   Gabrielle LaVon Royal (English, New York University): "Terror of the Room, Trauma of the Body: Deconstructing White Privilege in James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room."

12:20 pm - 1:20 pm: Lunch, Schultz Dining Room

1:30 pm - 2:50 pm: Keynote Address

•   Professor Kara Keeling (University of Southern California): “Queer Times and the Black Radical Imagination”, with an Introduction by Professor Wallace Best (Princeton University).

3:00 pm - 4:20 pm: Panel Three - Global and Domestic Geographies

•   Elizabeth Thompson (English, George Washington University):"Queer Commitments:  Re-imagining Colonial Identity, Non-Monogamy, and Marriage in Gayl Jones's Corregidora."

•   Kai Green (American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California): "Towards a Black Queer Geography: The Struggle Over the Uses of Erotic in a Time of Crisis."

•   Michael Yarbrough (Sociology, Yale University): Not the Performer but a Stage: State Law and Marriage in Two South African Communities."

•   Carla Moore (Gender Studies, Queens University):  "Only Who Can Undastan’ It Cross It: The (Im)possibility of Queerness in the Jamaican Dancehall."

4:30 pm - 5:50 pm: Panel Four - Historical Genealogies

•   Cookie Woolner (History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan): "'Have We a New Sex Problem Here?' The Early Great Migration and the Emergence of African American "Women Lovers."

•   David Green (American Culture, University of Michigan): "The Fictions of Marsha P. Johnson...or Are They? Black Queer History, Literature, and the Archive of Friendship."

•   Carol Lautier (American Studies, George Washington University): "‘If He Says He’s Black’: James Tinney and the Performance of Post-Civil Rights Black, Queer and Christian Identities."

•   Shana Russell (American Studies, Rutgers University-Newark): "Queerly Visible: The History of Radical Queer Activism at Rutgers-Newark."

5:50 pm - 6:00 pm: Closing Remarks

6:15 pm - 8:00 pm: Closing Reception, Shultz Dining Room

For further information please contact bqsgraduateconference@gmail.com or the conference conveners, Brittney M. Edmonds (bedmonds@princeton.edu) and Jennifer D. Jones (jdjones@princeton.edu).

For more information about travel and accommodations visit: http://www.princeton.edu/main/visiting/. 

Cosponsored by: The Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies, the Center for African American Studies, the Program in American Studies, the Graduate School of Princeton University, the Department of History, the Davis Center for Historical Studies, the University Center for Human Values, the LGBT Center, the Lewis Center for the Arts.