UNC Asheville Hosts Sixth Scholarly Conference on GLBTQ Studies;
Keynoter Judith Halberstam to Speak on "Queer Forgetting" April 1
Judith Halberstam, a leading scholar of gender and
sexuality studies, will be the keynote speaker at UNC Asheville’s sixth
GLBTQ Studies Conference to be held March 31-April 2 on the UNC
Asheville campus. Halberstam, an English professor at the University of
Southern California, teaches courses in queer studies, gender theory,
art, literature and film. She is the author of a number of books,
including a new title from NYU Press, “In a Queer Time and Place:
Transgendered Bodies, Subcultural Lives,” and “Female Masculinity” (Duke
University Press, 1998).
Halberstam’s talk on “Queer Forgetting” will
explore different ways of knowing the world and philosophical questions
surrounding remembrance. She will speak at 8 p.m. Friday, April 1, in
the Highsmith University Union’s Alumni Hall. The event is open to the
public; admission is $10 at the door.
GLBTQ or Queer Studies, sometimes more broadly
approached through Gender Studies, emerged as an academic discipline in
the 1970s. Among colleges and universities with Gender or Queer Studies
programs are the University of Chicago, Yale University, the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Cornell University, Hobart and William Smith
Colleges, SUNY-Purchase College, Smith College, and New York University.
Scholarly work in this interdisciplinary field draws on a number of
academic areas, including history, literature and the arts, social
sciences and the natural sciences to study the diversity of human
experience.
UNC Asheville’s GLBTQ Studies Conference brings
together scholars from across the nation who will be joined by
international participants from Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong
and Cameroon. The three-day conference will feature panels and paper
presentations by some 30 faculty and students that consider this year’s
topic of gender difference and cultural resistance. Among the colleges
and universities that will be represented are the University of
Michigan, Northwestern University, Simmons College, Indiana University,
George Washington University, Michigan State University, University of
Texas-Austin, Vanderbilt University, University of California-Berkeley,
the University of South Dakota, the University of Maryland, Rutgers
University and the University of Maine.
Noted panelists include Patricia Juliana Smith, an
assistant professor of English at Hofstra University, author of “Lesbian
Panic” (Columbia University Press, 1997) and member of the editorial
advisory board of www.glbtq.com;
Maria DeGuzman, a conceptual photographer and assistant professor of
Latina/o Literatures and Cultures in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of
English; Mary A. Armstrong, director of Women’s Studies and assistant
professor of English at California Polytechnic State University; and
Pamela Cooper, associate professor of English at UNC-Chapel Hill.
In conjunction with the conference, three films will be screened at the Fine Arts Theatre, 36 Biltmore Ave., in downtown
Asheville on Thursday, March 31. Screenings of “Ruthie & Connie:
Every Room in the House” and “Hummer” will begin at 7 p.m. The
screening of “Farm Family… In Search of Gay Life in Rural America” will
begin at 8:40 p.m. Admission is $6 for each screening or $10 for both.
All proceeds will benefit the conference.
Community members who are interested in attending
conference sessions may do so for a reduced registration fee. For more
information on fees and for the entire conference schedule, please go to
www.unca.edu/glsc.
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