CALL FOR PAPERS
Queer Places, Practices, and Lives III
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
May 12-13, 2017
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Mel Chen
We invite proposals for the third queer studies conference at The Ohio State University. Following on the successes of the previous “Queer Places, Practices, and Lives” conferences—the first held in honor of former Buckeye Samuel Steward, who donated funds to further research in LGBTQ studies—we seek proposals on any topic related to the field. Scholars, faculty, staff, graduate students, undergraduate students, artists, activists, teachers, social workers, community members, and anyone else interested in discussing LGBTQ issues are encouraged to submit. We welcome individual submissions as well as panels and roundtables of three to four participants. Although the call is open to all topics, we hope to highlight, in part through the keynote speakers, current work being pursued on queer and trans relations, trans justice, and trans and intersex issues.
Send a 300-word abstract, 2-page CV, and, if appropriate, a brief panel or roundtable description to osuqueerconference@gmail.com. Please include 3 keywords with your submission.
Deadline: Dec. 16, 2016.
Direct inquiries to Joe Ponce ponce.8@osu.edu.
For information and continuing conference updates, visit https://sexualitystudies.osu.edu/QPPL.
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Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a formerly incarcerated Black transgender elder and activist who has been fighting for the rights of trans women of color for over 40 years. She is a veteran of the Stonewall Rebellion and a survivor of Attica State Prison, a former sex worker, and a community leader and human rights activist. Miss Major is simply “Mama” to many in her community. Her personal story and activism for transgender civil rights intersects with LGBT struggles for justice and equality from the 1960s to today. At the center of her activism is her fierce advocacy for her girls, trans women of color who have survived police brutality and incarceration in men’s jails and prisons.
As part of Miss Major’s keynote, we are proud to screen MAJOR!, the new documentary film exploring her life and campaigns. MAJOR! is more than just a biographical documentary. It’s an investigation into critical issues of how the Prison Industrial Complex represents a widespread and systematic civil rights violation, as well as a historical portrait of diverse LGBT communities, told with love and humor, and personalized through the lens of a vibrant and charismatic woman. Through first-person narration and innovative visual storytelling, MAJOR! seeks to create a living, breathing history of a community’s struggle and resilience, as seen and experienced by those who lived it. The documentary, produced by filmmakers Annalise Ophelian and StormMiguel Florez, continues to win awards and to be featured at film festivals across the US and internationally.
Mel Y. Chen is Associate Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at UC-Berkeley and Director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture. Their research and teaching interests include queer and gender theory, animal studies, critical race theory and Asian American studies, disability studies, science studies, and critical linguistics. Dr. Chen’s 2012 book, Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect (Duke University Press, winner of Alan Bray Award from Modern Language Association’s GL/Q Caucus), explores questions of racialization, queering, disability, and affective economies in animate and inanimate “life” through the extended concept of “animacy.” A second book project concerns the relationships among the conceptual territories of “toxicity” and “intoxication” and their involvement in histories of the shared interanimation of race and disability.