Queer Hemisphere: A Workshop/Taller at UCSC, May 13-15, 2015

Queer Hemisphere: A Workshop/Taller
May 13-15, 2015
University of California, Santa Cruz

Organizers: Kirstie Dorr, Marcia Ochoa and Deb Vargas

Queer Hemisphere is a project to reorient queer studies and queer theory in the Américas along a hemispheric axis. We aim to create a conversation about queerness and other forms of sexual alterity and diversidad sexual that includes scholars, intellectuals and cultural workers from across the Américas. In order to have this conversation, we need to address the asymmetrical politics of citation, language, and knowledge production that often render minoritized queer scholars in the US and throughout Latin America invisible and unaccountable to each other.

In May, we are bringing together scholars who work in/on Latin America to build a genealogy of Latin American thinkers who have informed our approaches to "queer." Each participant will propose one piece of writing (article or chapter length) in Spanish or Portuguese and produced in the Américas that has shaped how we understand queerness, sexual alterity and diversidad sexual in this part of the world. The intention is for us to discuss the writing of other authors, not our own work. Participants will read the pieces, and present their chosen piece to the taller, making an argument for how it relates to the conversation. Over the course of our two-day conversation we will workshop these ideas and collectively generate a publication project.

This taller is the first of a series of activities that will continue over the next few years to articulate the contours of a Queer Hemisphere. In the Fall of 2016, we will convene a residential research group at the University of California at Irvine (funded by the UC Humanities Research Institute) that will include invited scholars from Latin America to more fully develop the conversation and build the basis for long-term intellectual engagement throughout the hemisphere.

We are putting this call out to advanced graduate students (ABD), faculty and independent scholars/cultural workers who would like to participate in the conversation in Santa Cruz. The taller is free of charge, however participants are responsible for travel and lodging costs on their own. We will provide some recommendations for convenient lodging options and have reserved a block of rooms at the Beach Street Inn in Santa Cruz.

Please submit a cover letter describing your research in the area and a CV, as well as the title of piece of writing you propose to discuss at thetaller to queer.hemisphere@ucsc.edu by April 1. The final list of participants will be available by April 10.

Confirmed Participants:
Carlos Decena
Kirstie Dorr
Licia Fiol-Matta
Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes
Marcia Ochoa
José Quiroga
Juana Maria Rodriguez
Marcelo Spitzner
Deb Vargas
Maria Célleri
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer
Lourdes Martínez Echázabal

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Queer Hemisphere
a UCHRI Research Group developed by:
Kirstie Dorr | Deborah R. Vargas | Marcia Ochoa