Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons^™

Metamorphis, Luca Lee Sobarzo Faust

Theses and Dissertations

Web3D interactive experience that explores time, communication, and transformation, from a personal storytelling perspective. Hosted on a web platform, the experience displays three environments: Metamorphis, Cuir AI, and Hain. These spaces propose a fragmented narrative that seeks to interrogate both the characters and the viewer’s perception on the linearity of time

The Impact On Gay Men Of Support And Enforcement Of Workplace Dei Policies: A Meta Analysis, Steven M. Vega

Student Theses and Dissertations

The poor enforcement of workplace DEI policies affects gay men in ways that are unique and invite close attention. The nature of the impact of missing or unsupported DEI policies on gay men has been widely debated in the field of human resources and communication studies, with scholars such as David Wicks, Helen Seitzer, James Ward, and Diana Winstansley arguing that these effects include lasting negative mental and physical health effects and discomfort with self-disclosure in the workplace. However, the existing research on this topic has not sufficiently considered the effects of the poor enforcement of workplace DEI policies side …

Queer And Trans Prison Voices: A Podcast Archive On Prison Abolition, Josefine Ziebell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project is located at the intersection of Critical Prison Studies, Gender Studies, Sound Studies, and American Studies. It highlights the importance of sonic modes of anti-carceral resistance by featuring the recorded voices of incarcerated people through the creation of a sonic archive of prison writings. By integrating that sonic archive into the podcast medium, this project functions as a digital archive for incarcerated voices, consisting of two tracks: a collection of short-spoken readings by queer and transgender incarcerated authors, and podcast-style interviews with activist scholars, organizations, and sound artists working towards prison abolition. In this paper, I establish …

Desexualizing Queer Identities: Methods To Validating Non-Sexual Romantic Attraction And Relationships, Unnati Patel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is an increase in the negative views of queer and LGBT+ people in America, and I argue that it is, in part, due to the sexualized connotations of, and sexual association with, queer and LGBT+ identities. Innocuous acts by queer or LGBT+ people, such as being an out school teacher or holding hands in a public space, is enough for non-LGBT+ people to become uncomfortable to varying degrees and, sometimes, even cause verbal abuse or violence. When we look at queer or LGBT+ representation through the possibility of queerness, and by reading representations of queer and LGBT+ romantic attraction …

The Queer Allure Of Digital Sociality, Benjamin Parrish Haber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the resonance between queer sociality and emergent forms of digital communication. Drawing from queer theory and LGBTQ social histories, this dissertation charts the convergence of digital social modulation with the polyvalence, promiscuity, and mutability of queer sociality. A close analysis of the infrastructure and design of Facebook, Snapchat, Grindr, and other queered social media platforms demonstrates how digital capitalism’s desire for lifelong compulsive engagement is in part facilitated by an appropriation of the ongoingness of queer sexuality and relationality. In highlighting the key role of temporality, aesthetic, and affect in regulating the creation and circulation of digital …

Lgbt In Colombia: A War Within, Monica Espitia

Capstones

On the surface, Colombia appears to be at the vanguard of the gay rights movement, having extended legal rights to same-sex couples and transgender people in recent years. But for many of the nearly five million Colombians who are LGBT, these rights have been largely meaningless as a result of the deep-rooted prejudice that often results in violence.

Gay, lesbian and transgender Colombians have been actively persecuted by armed groups involved in Colombia’s decades-long civil war. Members of the LGBT community are four times more likely than the rest of the population to be threatened and abused by both legal …

Update From The International Resource Network, Kalle Westerling

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The International Resource Network (IRN), the global network of researchers, activists, artists, and teachers sharing knowledge about diverse sexualities, hosted by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, as so far had a time of reorganization and applying for future funding. Meanwhile, the local organizations and projects associated with the network continued to grow and expand.

5th Annual Rainbow Book Fair, Sarah Chinn

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Each year, the Rainbow Book Fair grows larger and more exciting: as the largest LGBT book expo in North America, the RBF is the place to learn about new trends in queer publishing. Exhibitors at the Fair range from academic presses to romance and erotica, from trade presses to art books and literary journals and beyond: it’s the Fair’s goal to represent the amazing variety of queer and trans writers and publishers.

Letter From The Executive Director: An Accidental Protester, James Wilson

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

This past January, I spent a cold, wet, and fabulous week in Paris. One evening while strolling along the Left Bank, sauntering in the shadows of the imposing grandeur of L’Hôtel national des Invalides, I found myself caught up in a massive wave of protesters, who were dispersing from a demonstration in front of the Eiffel Tower. The crowd moved like a protean organism through the narrow Parisian streets, growing in immensity as other protest groups siphoned into the throng from criss-crossing thoroughfares.

In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives In The 1970s, Sarah Chinn

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

This past October, CLAGS hosted a historic conference to commemorate, celebrate, and evaluate the diverse contributions of lesbians over the course of the 1970s. The conference culminated a semester-long series of events that unfurled over the Spring 2010 term. In planning for the conference, the organizing committee (made up of Melissa Gasparotto, Andrea Freud Loewenstein, Roberta Sklar, Urvashi Vaid, and myself) imagined this conference as embracing as broad a field of lesbian lives as it could.

Wow Cafe Theater Unveils 30th Anniversary Festival After Three Decades, Fierce Performers Prove The Show Will Go On, Esther Zinn

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

WOW Cafe Theater, a collective for female and and trans performance artists, strutted its stuff during its Pearl festival in May by celebrating thirty years of producing risk-taking, genre-defying theatre during the entire month of May 2010. Featuring more than twenty performances and fifty artists spanning a broad spectrum of music, dance, and multi-media, the Pearl festival was arguably the biggest and longest running theatrical event for women in New York during this summer, made possible by a generous grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

International Resource Network (Irn) News–Middle East Participates In The 5th Annual Anti-Homophobia Conference In Turkey, Naveed Alam

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

"No disenfranchised minority is free unless all disenfranchised minorities are free." With this introductory statement Judith Butler went on to draw the links between precarity, performativity, and sexual politics as she delivered the keynote lecture during the 5th Annual Anti-Homophobia Conference at Ankara University on May 15, 2010.

Black Lesbians In The 70s, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

During the initial planning session for In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbian Lives in the 70s Spring Series, there was lack of clarity about the activity of Black Lesbians in the early part of the 1970s. The aim for Black Lesbian Herstory in the 70s: An At Home Tour and Guide to the Black Lesbian Herstory of the Collection was to present information to the lesbian community and increase Black Lesbian invisibility.

International Resource Network (Irn) Presents Seminars In The City, Naveed Alam

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

One of the major achievements of the IRN this year was our collaboration with CLAGS's ongoing Seminars in the City series. The Seminars in the City series is part of CLAGS's mission to make scholarly research in Queer Studies accessible to the general public.

Testimonial, Henry Abelove

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Douglas Crimp was born in 1944 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where his brother and sister still live. As a boy, Douglas imagined that he might become an architect, and he went to Tulane University specifically to study architecture. But soon after beginning his university life, he shifted his concentration to Art History. One Tulane Teacher of Art History in particular enthralled him. This was Bernard Lehman, an eloquent, learned, and effervescent lecturer, and a campy gay man, whom Douglas credits as a primary influence.

Transgender Justice, Richard M. Juang

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Proceedings from CLAGS's Trans Politics, Social Change and Justice conference will be available in January 2007 under the title Transgender Justice.

Some Thoughts On China's Sexual Revolution: Sexuality And Social Change In Contemporary China, Sun Zhongxin

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The last two years saw several changes in the public discourse around sex and sexuality in China. So what are some of the most controversial sex-related topics to be raised in China recently?

Lessons In Sex And Fascism: Dagmar Herzog's Pedagogy Workshop, Megan Jenkins

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

On December 4, 2006 Dagmar Herzog, Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center, led a lively workshop titled "What's So Sexy about Fascism? And Why is it Important to Think About it in the Classroom?" as part of the CLAGS/CSGS LGBTQ Plans Pedagogy Workshop.

Letter From The Executive Director: Queer Studies Goes Digital, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Google books, journals available only online, Wikipedia. With so much knowledge going digital, is print culture on its way our? While print probably won't disappear as a scholarly medium in the foreseeable future, it is important that CLAGS remain at the cutting edge not just in terms of the kinds of research we support, but in terms of how we disseminate that research. We are currently involved in several long-term projects to share digital resources with our membership and the community at large, expanding on our longstanding commitment to making print and analog materials available that are often not accessible …

The New Face Of Queer, The New Face Of Cuny, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The seventh Queer CUNY conference for LGBT students, staff, faculty, and alumni, took place at Brooklyn College on April 1, 2006. Students from all over the CUNY system of schools gathered to discuss, debate, and deconstruct what LGBT community is and what it might be.

Queer Studies In Asia, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

How does research about diverse sexualities and genders circulate through Asia? How do linguistic barriers affect the flow of local and regionally produced knowledges? Who calls the shots, defines the agenda, decides who gets published? How can we create more venues for South-South dialogues?

Report From The National Lgbtq Students Of Color Summit, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

I've always imagined finding a space where gender is not assumed, where women are undeniably and understandably attracted to each other, and where men embrace without fear. I found this space at the National Summit for LGBTQ Students of Color on the day of my 22nd birthday, January 15th, 2005. Over two nights and three days, the United States Student Association hosted a national summit filled with grassroots organizing workshops, "how-tos" for your campus, methods on how to challenge homophobia from other student groups while still building alliances, and late night dialogues on art and freedom of expression.

From The Executive Director, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

We find ourselves in difficult times: last November, referenda against same-sex marriage passed in 11 states; the war in Iraq continues, unabated; oxymoronic legislators in DC are strategizing to privatize social security; the Democratic Party is reevaluating its support of reproductive rights; the national security state is making it possible for states to verify their inhabitants' records against those of the feds, resulting in many undocumented workers and some trans people losing their drivers licenses; PBS has decided not to distribute a children's show in which a cartoon rabbit talks to the real children of lesbian moms, and even SpongeBob …

From The Executive Director, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

CLAGS joins other LBGT groups in condemning the sexual humiliation and other forms of torture inflicted on Iraqi detainees by US military forces. As the AI-Fatiha Foundation for LGBTIQ Muslims noted in a press release last month, "forcing men to masturbate in front of each other and to mock same-sex acts or homosexual sex is perverse and sadistic, in the eyes of many Muslims."

Changing Of The Guard, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

After four gratifying years, i have decided to step down as the executive director of CLAGS to focus again on research, writing, and teaching. As much as I have enjoyed the position and as proud as I am of all we have accomplished, the truth is, I don't have the temperament of an administrator. I'm yearning to teach graduate students again, to be more available to my undergraduate students at Baruch, and eager to jump back into the scholarship that I've had to put aside since 1999.

Media, Message And Meaning: The "Queer As...What?" Symposium, Andrew Ingall

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

On October 11, scholars, journalists, media watch activists, and community intellectuals examined depictions and productions of LCTBQ people in television, the World Wide Web, and print journalism at a CLAGS symposium with the wily title, "Queer as . . . What?"

Queer/Crip: The First Queer Disability Conference, Walter (Peter) Penrose

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The Queer Disability Conference, the first conference of its kind ever, held on June 2 and 3 at San Francisco State University, began with great enthusiasm of the participants, many of whom identified as both disabled and queer in some fashion or another. The opening plenary included an intersex activist, who discussed feelings of not being safe in a world where binary notions of sex and gender make being intersex perilous, and hoping that s/he would feel safe at the conference. A diverse group of activists, academics, and disabled queers provided for an interesting mix of perspectives.

Vigorous Debate And Rigorous Inquiry, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Our newsletter goes to press on the eve of President Bush's State of the Union address, in which he is expected to argue for going to war against Iraq. By the time this newsletter reaches you, the war may already have started. It's a frightening moment, to say the least. Meanwhile free speech and civil liberties are being curtailed in the name of security and scholars and researchers have special reasons to be wary: Archives are shutting off access; the Freedom of Information Act is being gutted; new laws are demanding that when asked by government officials, librarians must turn …

Harmful To Whom? Panelists Consider The Conservative Backlash Against Judith Levine's New Book, Patrick Mccreery

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Judith Levine jokingly says that at least she's in good company: Margaret Sanger, Alfred Kinsey, and Jocelyn Elders all were vilified for allegedly promoting sex between adults and children (though of course none of them did any such thing). Levine, a journalist and founder of the National Writers Union, has been vilified and worse because of her new book, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (University of Minnesota Press). In it, she argues that sex is not inherently harmful to teenagers, but can be healthy and empowering. Furthermore, she claims that society's responses to fears of …

Towelheads, Diapers, And Faggots: Reviving The Turban, Jasbir Puar

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In the days and weeks following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on September 11, there has been a rapid proliferation of mocking images of a turbaned Osama bin Laden, not to mention of the turban itself. In a photo-montage circulating from Stileproject.com, even George Bush has been sporting a bin Laden-esque turban. Another internet favorite is a picture of bin Laden superimposed into a 7-11 convenience store scene as a cashier. Posters that appeared in midtown Manhattan only days after the attacks show a turbaned caricature of bin Laden being anally penetrated by the Empire State building. The …