D.C. Queer Studies 2007: Now Queer This! Sexual Dissidence in Popular Culture

Conference Poster

Event Details

Tawes Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD

This series turned a scholarly eye on the queerness that so often puts the “pop” in popular culture. From the homoeroticism of sport to the gender-bending of fashion and musical performance, from cross-dressing on the Renaissance stage to same-sex kisses on TV shows, from the pop art of the 1950s to the queer comics and anime of the 2000s–Sexual dissidence and gender variation have been staples of mass culture and entertainment. But how does queerness signify in these cultural spaces and forms? Is it subversive of a dominant, heteronormative order, or are queer energies inevitably captured or contained by that order? Why is Broadway so welcoming to queer people and style, while the sports world is still so anxious about sexual minorities in the locker room? The focus was to shed critical light on images and activities that surround us every day, whether we are aware of them or not.

Events included:

• March 12: Pat Griffin, “New Rules for the Old Ball Game: Challenging Homophobia in Women’s Sports”
• April 3: Stacy Wolf, “‘Defying Gravity,’ or How Wicked’s Women Queered the Broadway Musical”
• April 17: Jonathan D. Katz, “‘Committing the Perfect Crime’: Sexuality, Assemblage, and the Postmodern Turn in American Art”
• May 3: Gayatri Gopinath,“Queer Regions: Locating Lesbians in Ligy Pullappally’s The Journey”

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