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City University of New York (CUNY)

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Articles 241 - 270 of 324

Full-Text Articles in Gender and Sexuality

Undercover Girl- The Fbi's Lesbian: A Note On Resources, Lisa E. Davis Jul 2003

Undercover Girl- The Fbi's Lesbian: A Note On Resources, Lisa E. Davis

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Historical investigation is never easy, but deciphering gay and lesbian history often turns out to be more than usually convoluted. The players lead at least two lives—public and private — and secrets abound. Clues appear in unconventional sources, beyond the library and beyond theory. If you are lucky, the search develops its own momentum. This is how the story of undercover girl Angela Calomiris (1915-95), "Angie" to her friends, whose life was touched by extraordinary events, revealed itself to me.


The Ten Days That Shook San Francisco: History And Myth, Paul Vandecarr Jul 2003

The Ten Days That Shook San Francisco: History And Myth, Paul Vandecarr

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

November 1978: a popular religious and civic leader from San Francisco named Jim Jones leads over 900 people—mostly African-Americans and many from San Francisco—to murder and suicide in a remote jungle community of Guyana called "Jonestown." Though far from San Francisco, the catastrophe strikes at the heart of the city's public life. Only nine days later, on November 27, ex-police officer and city Supervisor Dan White enters San Francisco City Hall and assassinates Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. These two events—which devastated San Francisco's African-American and gay communities—formed a defining moment in the city's turbulent and ongoing attempt …


Changing Of The Guard, Alisa Solomon Jul 2003

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.


Minding Our Q'S, Paisley Currah Jul 2003

Minding Our Q'S, Paisley Currah

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

A personal admission first—it's a scary thing to be stepping in as executive director, following in the very large footsteps of Alisa Solomon, Jill Dolan, and CLAGS's founder and first executive director, Martin Duberman, who have all worked so hard and accomplished so much to make CLAGS a major center for gay and lesbian studies. But, with the support of Alisa, the tremendous CLAGS board, its exceptional staff, and the many others who participate in its work, I am also looking forward to the challenge of building on their work.


Media, Message And Meaning: The "Queer As...What?" Symposium, Andrew Ingall Jan 2003

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?"


"Fifty Years After" Symposium Explores The Legacy Of Christine Jorgensen, Omar Portillo Jan 2003

"Fifty Years After" Symposium Explores The Legacy Of Christine Jorgensen, Omar Portillo

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

There is a rich history of people who have deliberately constructed their bodies and challenged the binary sex-gender system. On November 22, CLAGS presented a symposium in which scholars, trans. activists, service providers, and artists revisited the life of one of the most famous of them — Christine Jorgensen — and considered her impact on our understanding of gender identities five decades after her "sex change" made headlines. Guest speakers - among them C. Jacob Hale, Hugh McGowan, Joanne Meyerowitz, Mariette Pathy-Allen, Ben Singer, Dean Spade, Chris Straayer, Susan Stryker, and Dinh Tu Tran — traced Jorgensen's life and the …


"Sodoma, Sodoma, Thus Cried The Boys: A Reappraisal Of Gianantoni Bazzi's Life And Work, James Saslow Jan 2003

"Sodoma, Sodoma, Thus Cried The Boys: A Reappraisal Of Gianantoni Bazzi's Life And Work, James Saslow

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The farther back we go from modern into early modern history, the harder it gets to document those facets of an artist's personal life that might provide an anchor for claims to discern forms of homosexual authorial intention—without the probability of which, gay/lesbian studies might indeed collapse into the baldest claim of its detractors, that it is naught but meaningless psychospeculation.


Queer/Crip: The First Queer Disability Conference, Walter (Peter) Penrose Jan 2003

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 Jan 2003

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 …


"More Love And More Desire": A History Of The Brazil Lesbian, Gay, And Transgendered Movement, James N. Green Jul 2002

"More Love And More Desire": A History Of The Brazil Lesbian, Gay, And Transgendered Movement, James N. Green

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

For many LGBT activists, the 1969 Stonewall rebellion marked the beginning of a modern international liberation movement. Diffusing outward from New York, so the prevalent notion goes, homosexuals began to organize political movements to demand equal rights, inspired by the militancy of U.S. queers. According to this widely held idea, the emergence of gay and lesbian groups was slower in "Third World countries" because of authoritarian regimes, patriarchal social structures, and backward societies.


Harmful To Whom? Panelists Consider The Conservative Backlash Against Judith Levine's New Book, Patrick Mccreery Jul 2002

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 …


Expanding Horizons, Alisa Solomon Jan 2002

Expanding Horizons, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Happy New Year! Welcome to the new semester! Welcome to CLAGS's second decade! Such greetings would be heartfelt under any circumstances, but the artifices of the calendar seem especially useful now as we seek new beginnings after the trauma of the Fall.


The Perils Of Queering The Curriculum, David William Foster Jan 2002

The Perils Of Queering The Curriculum, David William Foster

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

A student came into my office the other day who provided a direct challenge to my efforts to queer the curriculum. Let me say first that, although I respect the value of teaching courses on topics that are presented as queer-marked — indeed, I teach graduate courses in English on Queer Theory and Queer Filmmaking - my ideological preference in the courses I teach in both Spanish and Portuguese is to engage in queer readings across the canon, toward demonstrating that 1) sexual/gender identity is problematic in all texts, and any facile or obvious attribution is likely to be the …


Violence, Mourning, Politics, Judith Butler Jan 2002

Violence, Mourning, Politics, Judith Butler

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

I’d like to speak to you this evening on the matter of politics and, specifically, how the struggles of gender and sexual minorities might offer a perspective on current issues that are before us, questions of mourning and violence, which we have to deal with as part of an international community. I'd like to start, and to end, with the question of the human, of who counts as the human, and the related question of whose lives count as lives, and with a question that has preoccupied many of us for years: what makes for a grievable life. I believe …


When The Local And The Global Are Too Close For Comfort, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes Oct 2001

When The Local And The Global Are Too Close For Comfort, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In the early morning of August 15, 2001, Edgar Garzon, a 35-year-old Latino gay man better know as "Eddie," was viciously attacked with a "blunt instrument" by an unidentified assailant who jumped out of a red car. This occurred in Jackson Heights, Queens, an extremely diverse neighborhood with large concentrations of Latin Americans, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Koreans and a sizeable gay population. Garzon suffered three fractures in his cranium and was in a coma until September 4, when he passed away at Elmhurst Medical Center. His family, who reside mostly in Colombia and Florida, as well as his close …


Towelheads, Diapers, And Faggots: Reviving The Turban, Jasbir Puar Oct 2001

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 …


Insisting On Inquiry, Alisa Solomon Oct 2001

Insisting On Inquiry, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

This special CLAGS newsletter goes to press exactly one month after hijackers rammed jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and aimed for a third target before being brought down in the fields of Pennsylvania. In the days immediately following the attacks, pundits, politicians and plain folks asserted that our lives in America had been changed forever. Certainly all of us at CLAGS have been stunned and shaken. Gathering for our first board meeting of the year just days later, we expressed our grief, confusion, anxieties, and fears. Like everyone, no doubt, we questioned the meaning and purpose …


Discovering, Again, The Meaning Of "American", Peter Hegarty Oct 2001

Discovering, Again, The Meaning Of "American", Peter Hegarty

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In his essay, "The discovery of what it means to be an American," James Baldwin described how his exile in Paris led him to new self-knowledge about his national identity. Baldwin left the US to survive what he called "the color problem," but was surprised to find he shared a sense of being "not at home" with white Americans in Europe. He was American in ways he had not realized. Exile afforded him intellectual freedom, but his growing consciousness of the French-Algerian war led him to understand that "there are no untroubled countries in this fearfully troubled world." Leaving home …


Lgbt Studies: Past, Presences And Futures, Richard M. Juang Jul 2001

Lgbt Studies: Past, Presences And Futures, Richard M. Juang

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

When I rolled out of bed at 4 am on April 20 to make the trip to New York for "Futures of the Field: Building LGBT Studies into the 21st Century University," the idea of discussing institutionalization was less than appealing. In a time of staff cutbacks, increasing courseloads and notoriously poor job markets, going back to sleep seemed a much better idea.


Standing Against Censorship—Again, Alisa Solomon Jul 2001

Standing Against Censorship—Again, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Good afternoon. I'm Alisa Solomon, the executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Cay Studies (CLAGS) at the City University of New York, and I'm glad to be here on behalf of CLAGS to voice our strong objection to Mayor Giuliani's so-called Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission. We at CLAGS are not fooled by the Mayor's disingenuous assertions that this committee is merely a group of concerned citizens exercising their free speech in offering him their advice, for we recognize many of the members as long-time activists in the effort to squelch dissident viewpoints and legislate their own narrow morality. …


Remembering Beyond The Self: Crossing Borders 2001, Jill Dolan Jul 2001

Remembering Beyond The Self: Crossing Borders 2001, Jill Dolan

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In a passionate keynote address at the third in CLAGS's series of "Crossing Borders" conferences, Cherríe Moraga called on conference participants to "hold the pussy in public," to join otherwise isolated Latina/o artists in bringing racialized queerness into public debate. Presented at the University of Texas at Austin in February, "Crossing Borders 2001: U.S. Latina/o Queer Performance" was linked by its coalitional politics around race and ethnicity—broadly figured as latinidad—and gender and sexuality. This three-day gathering was sponsored by CLAGS through a generous gift from the Michael C.P. Ryan Estate and co-sponsored by the Center for Dramatic and Performance Studies …


Challenging Assumptions: A Social Worker's View Of Future Of The Field, Lori Messinger Jul 2001

Challenging Assumptions: A Social Worker's View Of Future Of The Field, Lori Messinger

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

It was a pleasure to gather with other LGBT scholars from across the country, including some of the biggest names in the field, at the conference, "Futures of the Field: Building LGBT Studies into the 21 st Century." That said, I came away with some serious reservations about the state of our field, where we will be going, and who is leading us there. I spoke a few times at the conference, but I wanted to offer my thoughts in a more coherent and comprehensive manner.


Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On, Alisa Solomon Jul 2001

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

I’ve just finished teaching an undergraduate Shakespeare class at Baruch College—CUNY to a class of mostly business majors. For many of the students, English is not their first language, so predictably, they had some trouble parsing Shakespeare's text. But they had no difficulty at all understanding what was going on between Patroclus and Achilles in Troilus and Cressida, or, arguably, between Antonio and Sebastian—or Olivia and Viola or Orsino and Cesario—in Twelfth Night. In general, they were not in the slightest surprised to find homoeroticism in the works of the Greatest Writer Ever. (Indeed, critically analyzing Bardolatry was …


The Sexual Democracy Of Miscegenation: Jossianna Arroyo Examines The Homoerotic Narratives Of The Father Of Racial Democracy, Marcelo Montes Penha Jul 2001

The Sexual Democracy Of Miscegenation: Jossianna Arroyo Examines The Homoerotic Narratives Of The Father Of Racial Democracy, Marcelo Montes Penha

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Investigations of the sexual Other generally attempt to explain sexual practices by characterizing their practitioners as "homosexual" or "gay." Jossianna Arroyo, Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Michigan, went beyond this approach during her March 28 colloquium presentation, "Brazilian Homoerotics: Cultural Subjectivity and Representation in Gilberto Freyre." Arroyo explores not just sexual practices but also the construction of the Brazilian nation through a reading of Gilberto Freyre's two novels, Dona Sinha e o Filho Padre (1964) and O Outro Amor de Dr. Paulo (1977).


Emerging Fields Of Study, Lesley C. Graydon Jan 2001

Emerging Fields Of Study, Lesley C. Graydon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

When I learned that CLAGS had secured an interdisciplinary program in Lesbian and Gay Studies and that the first course, An Introduction to Lesbian and Gay/Queer Studies, was to be offered in the Fall, I knew that I wanted to be in what I conceived as the first step in a much larger offering and celebration of critical ideas and counter-hegemonic discourse. I thought: finally, I won't be the only student reading and thinking from a radically left, feminist, lesbian, perspective - not that all of these four leanings must in any way accompany the position of lesbian, gay or …


Why Do They Strike Us?, James Polchin Jan 2001

Why Do They Strike Us?, James Polchin

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Over the past two years since the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie Wyoming, the circumstances of his death have held a symbolic place in the story of violence against gay men and lesbians nationally. University of Wyoming Professor Beth Loffreda's book Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder is on the "Lambda Book Report" best-sellers list and MTV has recently premiered "Anatomy of a Hate Crime: The Matthew Shepard Story" that dramatized the events of October 6th, 1998. The telling and retelling of Shepard's murder in both academic books and popular culture suggests …


Major Advances, Omar Portillo Jan 2001

Major Advances, Omar Portillo

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

When I receive copies of my college transcripts from CUNY these days, under my major it reads, "Gay and Lesbian Studies," followed by "Gender and Sexuality Studies." As far as I know, I am the first CUNY undergraduate to see such a major on his/her transcript. I have managed to build this major through the CUNY BA program — which allows students to fashion their own major if no campus provides it, by compiling courses at a range of CUNY campuses — and CLAGS has been instrumental in my achieving this goal. It makes me feel so proud to know …


Double Margins: Yolanda Martines-San Miguel Discusses Lgbtq Hispanic Caribbean Lit, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes Jan 2001

Double Margins: Yolanda Martines-San Miguel Discusses Lgbtq Hispanic Caribbean Lit, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In her talk, "Families of Desire: Migration and Sexuality in New York's Caribbean Enclaves," Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel explored the representation of same-sex affective and sexual relationships in the works of one lesbian and two gay Hispanic Caribbean authors, all of whom migrated to New York from their island of origin and who portray this Diasporic experience in their writing. Her presentation forms part of a broader, book-length project on cultural representations of migration among Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and New York, including literature, popular music, graffiti, and photography.


"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene Jul 2000

"Who Is Sleeping In The Bed Of Sodom?", Nancy Levene

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

The question that I am left with from the extraordinary presentations over the conference's two days borrows from Rabbi Steve Greenberg's and Ludger Viefhues's discussion of the multiple images of the biblical "Sodom". Conventionally Sodom has signified a place of sexual deviance or, conversely, sexual censorship. But as Greenberg pointed out, in many traditional commentaries on the story of the condemnation of Sodom, the issue was not that the townspeople were engaged in forbidden sexual practices, but that they were violent and hostile to those in need of shelter and food.


Quny Notes, Robert Kaplan Jul 2000

Quny Notes, Robert Kaplan

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In March 2000, QUNY, the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered/queer graduate student group at the CUNY Graduate Center, hosted former CLAGS Board member Elizabeth Freeman, who gave a highly informative talk about queer work and the academic job market. In May, QUNY celebrated the end of the first academic year in its new home with a social to which many new students came with ideas for next year's calendar. Everyone was especially excited about the Graduate Center's new concentration in lesbian/gay/queer studies that begins Fall 2000.