Each semester, CSGS sponsors or co-sponsors events exploring the issues of gender and sexuality. All events are free and open to the public, and all venues are wheelchair accessible unless otherwise noted. If you need sign language interpretation services or other accommodations, please let us know as soon as possible.
You can also check out our online calendar of events here.
Spring 2012 EVENTS
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Anti-trafficking and Rehabilitation Discourses: A Case Study in HIV/AIDS Intervention Strategies in India
a lunch talk with Satarupa Dasgupta
January 27, Friday
12:30 to 1:45 pm
Satarupa Dasgupta, Postdoctoral and Transition Program for Academic Diversity Fellow, New York University
Articulation of sex work entails the commonly observed connection between sex work and trafficking, proposed delegitimization of sex work, and rescue and rehabilitation propositions for sex workers. I analyze the policy documents of global aid organizations and legislations, and examine the case of Sonagachi Project, a HIV/AIDS intervention program that targets sex workers in one of the largest red light districts of South Asia. The project is spearheaded by the sex workers themselves, who act as peer outreach workers, and there are no external organizations involved. By conducting interviews with commercial female sex workers from Sonagachi area I examine the sex workers’ perspectives on the articulation of trafficking and sex work, anti-trafficking legislations in India, the delegitimization and criminalization of sex work, rescue and rehabilitation propositions for sex workers, compulsion and abuse in sex work, and the reasons for pursuing sex work as a profession. I also assess the strategies adopted by the Sonagachi Project to restrict trafficking and the entry of unwilling and minor individuals in sex work.
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
41-51 East 11th Street, 7th Floor Gallery
between University Place and Broadway
wheelchair access at 85-87 University Place, between 11th & 12th Streets
Bring your lunch — we’ll provide beverages and dessert!
Cabaret of Confusion: Political Performance and the Work of Variety
a lunch talk with T.L. Cowan
February 8, Wednesday
12:30 to 1:45 pm
T.L. Cowan, Women’s and Gender Studies and English, University of Saskatchewan; Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York University
The cabaret—or, more broadly, the variety show—is arguably the most open and resilient form of live expressive culture in radical feminist and queer scenes in North America. It is, at once, an eclectic, genre-troubling performance space; a vital, if incoherent, form of entertainment and social commentary; a community-building and sustaining set of activities; a dynamic, responsive and transformative site of political activism and aesthetic innovation; and, ultimately, a mode of existence and way of knowing that is both produced by, and produces, radical feminist and queer lives. Central to my work on the contemporary variety show is the concept of “cabaret consciousness”: a mobile ontology and episteme that privileges unpredictability, pleasure, risk, excess, failure, challenge and confusion, characteristics of the cabaret that are mutually constitutive with their translocal radical feminist and queer scenes. This paper will consider the ways in which the variety format of cabaret reminds us of the importance of confusion. I suggest that a feminist and queer “cabaret consciousness” is a mode of living, being and knowing in confusion; to apprehend the mutually constitutive relationship between political cabaret and feminist and queer scenes across North America, for example, is to apprehend confusion as a political/erotic/social affective register shared across demographic and geographic borders.
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
41-51 East 11th Street, 7th Floor Gallery
between University Place and Broadway
wheelchair access at 85-87 University Place, between 11th & 12th Streets
Bring your lunch — we’ll provide beverages and dessert!
image: 2boys.tv perform “Hot Voodoo” in Chiapas, Mexico, 2010. Photo by Marlene Ramirez Cancio. Photo Courtesy of the Artists.
Sex, Empire, and Literature in the Anglo-American World, 1700-2020: Henry Abelove and “The Gay Science”
a two-day conference with Henry Abelove, Rebecca Connor, Jasper Cragwall, Douglas Crimp, Lisa Duggan, Phil Harper, Neville Hoad, Allan Isaac, Janet Jakobsen, Michael Lucey, Steven Maynard, Tavia Nyong’o, Claire Potter, Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Roth, Todd Shepard, Marc Stein, Michael Trask, and Dorothy Wang
February 16 & 17, Thursday & Friday
For more information: abelove.wordpress.com
Thursday, February 16
5 to 8 pm
Fales Library and Special Collections
70 Washington Square South, 3rd Floor
5 to 5:15 pm Welcome
5:15 to 6:45 pm Panel 1: Pedagogy
Chair: Claire Potter (Wesleyan University)
Panelists:
Steven Maynard (Queen’s University)
Tavia Nyong’o (New York University)
Michael Roth (Wesleyan University)
Todd Shepard (Johns Hopkins University)
7 to 8 pm Reception
8:30 Participant dinner reservation
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Friday, February 17
10 am to 6 pm
The Humanities Initiative
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor
10 to 11:30 am Panel 2: Eighteenth Century
Chair: Marc Stein (York University)
Panelists:
Rebecca Connor (Hunter College)
Jasper Cragwall (Loyola University)
Daniel Rosenberg (University of Oregon)
11:30 to 1 pm lunch
1 to 2:30 Panel 3: Poetry and Literature
Chair: Allan Isaac (Rutgers University)
Panelists:
Phil Harper (New York University)
Michael Trask (University of Kentucky)
Dorothy Wang (Williams College)
2:30 to 2:45 pm Break
2:45 to 4:15 pm Panel 4: Queer Studies
Chair: Lisa Duggan (New York University)
Panelists:
Janet Jakobsen (Barnard College)
Michael Lucey (University of California, Berkeley)
Neville Hoad (University of Texas, Austin)
4:15 to 4:30 pm Break
4:30 to 5:30 pm Keynote: Douglas Crimp (University of Rochester)
5:30 to 6 pm Closing Remarks from Henry Abelove (Wesleyan University, visiting New York University, Spring 2012)
Co-sponsored by the Departments of Performance Studies, English, and Social & Cultural Analysis; the Programs in American Studies, Women’s & Gender Studies; the Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality; Fales Library and the Humanities Initiative at NYU.
Czech Mates: When Shakespeare Met Kafka
a lecture by Marjorie Garber
February 21, Tuesday
6 to 7:30 pm
Marjorie Garber, English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University
Hemmerdinger Hall
31 Washington Place
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality; Department of English
Dr. Ghislaine Pussait’s Homobonobo Project
a performance by Shelly Mars
March 1, Thursday
6 to 7:30 pm
Shelly Mars, solo performance artist
followed by a discussion led by:
Una Chaudhuri, English, New York University
Carolyn Dinshaw, English and Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University
Performance Studies Studio
721 Broadway, Room 612
Co-sponsored by the NYU Animal Studies Initiative; Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality; Joe A Callaway Series in Dramatic Literature of the Department of English; and Department of Performance Studies
The Multiple Futures of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: The Sequel
a panel discussion with Kandice Chuh, Lisa Duggan, Ann Pellegrini, Sarita Echavez See, & Alexandra Vazquez
March 7, Wednesday
6 to 8 pm
Kandice Chuh, English, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Lisa Duggan, Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University
Ann Pellegrini, Performance Studies and Religious Studies, New York University
Sarita Echavez See, Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis
Alexandra Vazquez, African American Studies and English, Princeton
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor
Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality; Department of Social and Cultural Analysis; and by the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and the Revolutionizing American Studies Initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center
The Fetishism of Colonial Commodities and the Intimacies of Four Continents
a lecture by Lisa Lowe
March 22, Thursday
6 to 7:30 pm
Lisa Lowe, Comparative Literature, UC San Diego
This lecture revisits Marx’s fetishism of commodities and nineteenth-century liberal policies of “free trade” in relation to products (like tea, sugar, cottons, and opium) that expressed the colonial and imperial relations between Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor
Co-sponsored by the NYU Program in Asian/Pacific/American Studies and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
Show & Prove: The Tensions, Contradictions, & Possibilities of Hip Hop Studies
a two-day conference — more info to follow
March 30, Friday
6 to 10 pm
March 31, Saturday
8 am to 10 pm
Show and Prove 2012 (S&P 2012) provides an opportunity for a community of scholars, practitioners, and Hip Hop lovers to come together and address the challenges and possibilities of the field of Hip Hop Studies. We consider what is at stake as the academy’s increasing adoption of Hip Hop into its curriculum leads to a mutual adaptation. The conference takes seriously Hip Hop’s own creative, theoretical, and political imperatives, while bringing critical perspectives to the very cultures we seek to understand. This year’s focus is on intersectionality and methodology.
Several papers, panels, and performances are of particular interest to CSGS, including papers on domestic violence and community accountability, the sexual politics of Hip Hop Studies, gender and sexuality in dance, masculinity, intersections of gender and nationality in Tongan Hip Hop, black female youth in Hip Hop, Latinas in the Cuban rap scene, and a women in Hip Hop festival at LaMama Experimental Theater. The conference will also include a one-woman show by Dr. Nicole Hodges-Persley and two films by women directors: Hip Hop Gurlz directed by Tamika Guishard, and Cuban Hip Hop: Desde El Principio (From the Beginning) by Vanessa Diaz.
Performance Studies Studio
721 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 612
Co-Sponsored by the NYU Center for Multicultural Education and Programs; Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality; Department of Performance Studies; Hip-Hop Education Center; LGBTQ Student Center; Program in Africana Studies; Program in American Studies; Program in Asian/Pacific/American Studies; and Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies
Cleaving to the Scene of Shame: Stigmatized Childhoods in The End of Alice and Two Girls, Fat and Thin
a lecture by Kaye Mitchell
April 4, Wednesday
6 to 7:30 pm
Kaye Mitchell, American Studies and English, University of Manchester
respondent: Heather Love, English, University of Pennsylvania
moderator: Ann Pellegrini, Performance Studies and Religious Studies, New York University
Department of Social and Cultural Analysis
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor
Co-sponsored by the NYU Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
The Gender and Sexual Politics of End-of-Life Care
a panel discussion with Susan Gerbino, Amber Hollibaugh, Ann Neumann, and Ai-Jen Poo
April 10, Tuesday
6 to 8 pm
Susan Gerbino, Social Work, New York University
Amber Hollibaugh, Executive Director, Queers for Economic Justice
Ann Neumann, Editor, The Revealer and journalist
Ai-Jen Poo, Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance
moderator: Robert Campbell, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
Performance Studies Studio
721 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 612
Susan Gerbino is Clinical Associate Professor at NYU’s Silver School of Social Work. She is currently the Coordinator of Silver’s Westchester Campus and is the Director of the Post-Masters Certificate Program in Palliative and End-of-Life Care. Dr. Gerbino has a private practice specializing in work with people with chronic or life-threatening illnesses and complicated bereavement.
Amber Hollibaugh is the executive director of Queers for Economic Justice and has a long and distinguished history of organizing around health care as a social justice issue. Among other things she is the past director of National Initiatives at SAGE — Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.
Ann Neumann is a journalist, a hospice volunteer, and editor of The Revealer, a publication of NYU’s Center for Religion and Media. She has written about health care and end of life care for The Nation, AlterNet and other publications and is currently writing a book about how Americans die.
Ai-Jen Poo is the director and visionary leader of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which has recently introduced a campaign, Caring Across Generations, which connects the pressing need for quality care for the elderly to labor issues affecting healthcare workers and the gender and racial politics of just who (that is, whose bodies) does the labor of home health care.
Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and the Department of Performance Studies.
Religion, Sexuality and AIDS: All the News That’s Fit to Print?
The Lerner Workshop in Religion and Society at NYU, Inaugural Lecture by Diane Winston
Thursday, April 26
6 to 7:30 pm
Diane Winston, Media and Religion, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California
How three newspapers covered the AIDS crisis in the 80s and turned AIDS into a moral/medical issue through religious tropes.
Jurow Hall
31 Washington Place, 1st Floor
Sponsored by Religious Studies, co-sponsored by Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Dean of the College of Arts and Science.
The Production of Military Sexuality
a lunch talk by Michael Anastario
April 27, Friday
12:30 to 1:45 pm
Michael Anastario, CSGS Visiting Scholar
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
41-51 East 11th Street, 7th Floor Gallery
between University Place and Broadway
wheelchair access at 85-87 University Place, between 11th & 12th Streets
Bring your lunch — we’ll provide beverages and dessert!
