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D.C. Queer Studies 2020: Queer Beyond The States

The status of the state – and the United States in particular – has been a central subject of debate in queer studies.

Event Information

The 2020 symposium was sadly cancelled due to COVID-19.

March 27, 2020, University of Maryland, College Park

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Gayatri Gopinath (New York University)
Sandra K. Soto (University of Arizona)
 
The status of the state – and the United States in particular – has been a central subject of debate in queer studies. Since the earliest years of the field, scholars have tended to assert the heteronormative and homophobic logics of the state form; with time, this was joined by challenges to the whiteness and U.S. centricity of the field and its central terms, including
“queer” itself. Yet the term persists. Whether it becomes translated or reimagined (i.e. as “queer of color,” “cuir,” “quare,” “kweer”) or relocated outside of the U.S. academy, a central desire for the possibilities that queer studies might yet offer to critiques of the state(s) remains. What is the relationship between the activist and scholarly histories of queer and the state (and the United States) today? How is queer deployed or dispensed within projects that seek to of dislodge the abuses of state power and the logics of anti-Blackness, settler colonialism, endless war, anti- immigration, and other forms of subjection? How do queer studies scholars today analyze the entanglements of sexuality and state power in its specific and general forms?
 
“Queer Beyond the State(s)” aims to bring together scholarship that engages the relationship between queer studies and the state, broadly conceived. This includes scholarship identified with the radical possibilities of queer, its translation, and its critiques, as they challenge, refuse, and critique the violent logics that undergird the nation-state. But it also includes scholarship that tracks other directions in the field. In particular, we invite work that provides focused attention on social, sexual, or cultural arrangements that are facilitated by or function beyond the purview of the state; that engages the project of queer in transnational contexts; and that
reconsiders nationalist frameworks and a focus on state antagonisms. In other words, we seek scholarly, artistic, and activist projects that insist on making the core challenges of “queer” and “queer studies” productive schemas that offer us ways to re-think the nation-state, whether in the United States or beyond.

Call for Papers

Deadline for submissions of materials to dcqs@umd.edu: December 21
We invite papers on:

  • Queer kinships and alternative arrangements
  •  Diasporic contestations
  •  The ongoing possibilities of queer aesthetics
  •  Local and community grounded projects
  •  Queerness and anti-capitalism
  •  Queering gender and its limitations
  •  The legacies of early queer studies scholarship Transnational solidarities 
  • Queer internationalisms
  • Queer politics and the left

Submissions from any academic discipline, as well as activists, artists, and community groups are welcomed. We also encourage artists and performers to submit proposals on creative work or work presented in non-traditional forms.
 
Please submit 250-word paper abstract, panelist bio, and 1-2 page CV by December 10, 2019 to dcqs@umd.edu
 
You may also submit a proposal for an entire panel on a particular theme or topic, which must include bios, CVs, and abstracts for each presenter/paper, as well as a description of the panel itself. Please send materials by e-mail attachment (PDF or Word). All submissions will be peer
reviewed, and those accepted will be notified no later than January 20, 2020. 
 
All events will be free and open to the public.