The Department of Gender & Women’s Studies

Events November 14, 2006 - Tuesday Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley "Queering Black Atlantic and Blue Caribbean Waters: Re-imagining Seascapes and Theorizing Contemporary Queer Caribbean Literature" 3335 Dwinelle Hall Begins at 4 p.m. What would it mean for both queer and African diaspora studies to theorize that the Black Atlantic has always been a queer Atlantic? What new geography­or better, oceanography­of sexual, gendered, transnational, and racial identities might emerge through a queer reading of transoceanic dislocations between Africa and the Caribbean? This talk examines recently published creative texts that imagine queer relationships between African kidnapees in slave ships’ holds. These texts open space both to rethink submerged sexual, racial histories and comment on the intersections between African diaspora and queer experiences in a contemporary era of Haitian refugees, transnational Dominican laborers, and international West Indian “gay” activists. Texts I will consider include Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return (2001), Thomas Glave’s Words to Our Now (2005), and Ana Lara’s Erzulie’s Skirt (2006). Postponed - New Date to be Determined Kum Kum Bhavnani "The Shape of Water" Documentary Screening and Discussion The Shape of Water focuses on the lives of women in some Third World countries. 3335 Dwinelle Hall 4 to 6 p.m. See Event Flyer November 28, 2006 - Tuesday Fatima El-Tayeb "Queering Ethnicity. European Minority Activism and New Media Cultures" 3335 Dwinelle Hall Begins at 4 p.m. This talk is based on a larger work-in-progress exploring translocal, “postethnic” youth cultures in European urban centers and the ways in which they use new media to challenge the stubborn myth of the mono-ethnic European nation state and the gender, racial, and sexual identities attached to it. This "queer" practice of identity construction results in a new type of diaspora consciousness neither grounded in ethnic identifications nor referencing a however mythical “homeland”, instead using the tension of living supposedly exclusive identities and transforming it into a creative potential, building a community based on the shared experience of multiple, contradictory positionalities. While this queering of essentializing ascriptions is characteristic for a larger group of minority activists, it is rooted in the practice of queer youth of color who are at the center of these subversive projects, spreading queer strategies, particularly through a politicizing of popular culture. In my talk, I will trace the genealogy of European queer of color activism in transnational feminism and HipHop culture and explore its relation to a contemporary liberal discourse in Europe that increasingly frames minority, and particularly Muslim, cultures' Otherness in terms of gender and sexuality. November 30, 2006 - Thursday Juana Maria Rodriguez "Rethinking Sovereign Bodies: Queer Utopian Longings, Anti-Colonial Activism" 3335 Dwinelle Hall 4 to 5:30 p.m. Author of Queer Latinidad, Juana Maria Rodriguez received her PhD from UC Berkeley and since then has held academic appointments in English at Bryn Mawr College and currently in Women and Gender Studies at UC Davis. Her research and teaching interest are in Queer Theory and Ethnic Communities, Latina Literatures and Cultures, and feminist approaches to Ethnic Studies. February 15, 2007 - Tuesday Caroline Streeter Assistant Professor, English and Africa American Studies, UCLA "From Tragic Mulatta to Race Woman: Dorothy Dandridge, Halle Berry and the Politics of Hollywood Film" 307 Dwinelle Hall 4 to 5:30 p.m. Streeter will discuss the ways in which Halle Berry has become an exemplary representative African American actress in the post-Civil Rights era/New Millennium. An artistic trajectory linking Dorothy Dandridge to Berry has become naturalized in Hollywood, reflecting the powerful ranshistorical resonance of the mulatto/a in visual culture. Berry's career strategy, as well as the media discourse that frames her as a celebrity and increasingly, a brand, have been aimed at solidifying her status as a representative African American. Still, her racial hybridity is an absolute essential feature of her success as a cultural symbol. Like Dandridge, she is a boundary figure whose signifying power derives from her status as a mulatto/a -- a key modality for how racial difference is managed in the United States.