Fall 2013

The Queer Subjects of Latino/a Psychoanalysis

a panel discussion with Licia Fiol-Matta & Antonio Viego

Wednesday, September 18
6:30 to 8:15 pm

Licia Fiol-Matta, Latin American, Latino and Puerto Rican Studies, Lehman College, CUNY; and Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Languages and Literatures, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Antonio Viego, Literature, Duke University

Moving between archives high and low, and between expert and popular representations of “the” Latino/a subject, Licia Fiol-Matta and Antonio Viego explore queer meeting points between Latino/a Studies and psychoanalytic theory.  After opening presentations, the two panelists will engage in an open-ended conversation with moderator José Muñoz.

Department of Performance Studies
721 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 621

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, the Department of Performance Studies, and the Latino Studies Program.



Radical Presence: Black Study and Black Performance

a roundtable discussion with Daphne Brooks, Thomas DeFrantz, Malik Gaines, & Tavia Nyong’o

Thursday, September 26
7 to 9 pm

Daphne Brooks, English and African-American Studies, Princeton

Thomas DeFrantz, Dance and African & African American Studies, Duke University

Malik Gaines, Art, Hunter College

moderated by: Tavia Nyong’o, Performance Studies, New York University

This roundtable will bring together scholars from a range of disciplines, including art history, dance, theater and performance studies to dialogue on the radical potential of black performance as a scene of study. What might performance be able to do if we suspend assumptions about its proper time and location? How might artists, scholars, curators and the public find better ways of getting together for collective study and action? Can radical presence build concrete utopias? Can performance sustain the powerful feelings of love and mutuality that it so frequently evokes in the moment? This panel will explore how black study — both within and beyond the academy — might redraw the maps, and reimagine the histories, of performance art.

Department of Performance Studies
721 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 621

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality; Department of Performance Studies; and Grey Art Gallery.



New Queer Cinema: New Politics?

a Bentson Dean’s Lecture Series lecture by B. Ruby Rich

Wednesday, October 9
5:30 to 7 pm

B. Ruby Rich, Film & Digital Media, UC Santa Cruz

Jurow Hall
100 Washington Square East

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for Media, Culture & History; Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality; and Dean of the College of Arts & Science.



Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era

a roundtable discussion with Beatriz Preciado, and José Muñoz & Avital Ronell

Tuesday, October 15
6:30 to 8 pm

Beatriz Preciado, History of the Body, Gender Theory, and History of Performance, University of Paris 8

José Muñoz, Performance Studies, New York University

Avital Ronell, Comparative Literature and German, New York University

“If the reader sees this text as an uninterrupted series of philosophical reflections, accounts of hormone administration, and detailed records of sexual practices without the solutions provided by continuity, it is simply because this is the mode on which subjectivity is constructed and deconstructed.”  So concludes the Introduction to Beatriz Preciado’s Testo Junkie.  The book blurs boundaries — between high theory and diaristic self-portraiture  — and explodes disciplinary conventions in a path-breaking examination of the impact of new technologies and representational forms on the way sex, sexuality, gender, and “the” body are lived and experienced.   This forum puts author Beatriz Preciado into conversation with José Muñoz and Avital Ronell on the occasion of Testo Junkie’s first publication in English.

Department of Performance Studies
721 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 612

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality and the Department of Performance Studies.



Queer Japan

The first installment of this year’s Globally Queer? series — a panel discussion with Nina Cornyetz, Yukiko Hanawa, Karen Shimakawa, & J. Keith Vincent

Wednesday, October 23
6 to 8 pm

Nina Cornyetz, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University

Yukiko Hanawa, East Asian Studies, New York University

J. Keith Vincent, Modern Languages & Comparative Literature, Boston University

moderated by Karen Shimakawa, Performance Studies, New York University

Department of Social & Cultural Analysis
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and Department of East Asian Studies.

photo courtesy of Kakoi Kentaro



“You Can Tell Just By Looking” and 20 Other Myths About LGBT Life and People

a book salon with Ann Pellegrini & Michael Amico

Wednesday, October 30
6 to 7:30 pm

Ann Pellegrini, Performance Studies and Religious Studies, New York University

Michael Amico, Doctoral Candidate ABD, American Studies, Yale University

“You Can Tell Just By Looking” and 20 Other Myths About LGBT Life and People takes aim at some of the most persistent and pernicious myths about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, culture, and life in the United States. Some of these myths — such as the notion that “all religions condemn homosexuality” or that “transgender people are mentally ill” — have been used to justify discrimination and even violence against LGBT people. But others — such as the claim that “homosexuals are born that way” or that “hate crime laws prevent violence against LGBT people” — are embraced and circulated by many LGBT communities and their allies. At this book salon, Ann Pellegrini and Michael Amico, two of the authors of this just-published book, discuss the ongoing force of these myths and the contemporary challenges of developing a more nuanced — and messy — understanding of sexual identities and sexual politics, in the plural.

NYU Bookstore
726 Broadway

Co-sponsored by the NYU Bookstore; LGBTQ Student Center; and Pride Month.



Religión y Política en las Américas Contemporaneas / Religion and Politics in the Contemporary Americas

a lecture by Enrique Dussel

THIS LECTURE HAS BEEN CANCELED — WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Enrique Dussel, Philosophy, Autonomous Metropolitan University, Mexico, DF

In this lecture, renowned philosopher Enrique Dussel will address the contemporary intersections of religion and politics in Latin America as they have developed since the rise of Liberation Theology during the second half of the 20th Century.

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, and Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics; with generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.



Affecting Performances: The Media & Embodied Politics of Contemporary Christianity

a panel discussion with Anthony Petro & Jill Stevenson

Thursday, November 14
5 to 7 pm

Anthony Petro, Religion, Boston University

Jill Stevenson, Theatre Arts, Marymount Manhattan College

In her recently published book, Sensational Devotion: Evangelical Performance in Twenty-First-Century America, Jill Stevenson looks to biblical theme parks, Passion plays, Holy Land recreations, mega-churches, and creationist museums to examine the sensuous practices and performative genres that shape evangelical beliefs – and believers.  Tonight, in this forum with Anthony Petro, Stevenson discusses the interplay between religion and media and the role of embodied feelings in the creation of religious worlds.

Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for Religion & Media; Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, and Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics; with generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.



Brother to Brother

a panel discussion with Thomas Allen Harris, Lenelle Moïse, & Bill Wright

Monday, November 18
6 pm

The Institute of African American Affairs (IAAA) at NYU presents a semester-long series (see also Sister to Sister on December 9th) of lectures, poetry readings, and film screenings with key figures, as well as emerging stars, of the LGBT intelligentsia. At a time when LGBT issues are openly being considered in mainstream consciousness, it prompts us to rethink the boundaries and conceptual paradigms surrounding the production of cultural knowledge from the perspectives of LGBT artists, scholars and activists. These conversations will be an exploration into the many LGBT narratives that examine and reveal perceptions, attitudes, continuous negotiations or renegotiations, and creative systems of survival.

20 Cooper Square, 7th Floor

Space is limited. Please RSVP to IAAA at 212-998-IAAA (4222).

For more information & updates please visit IAAA.

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality and the Institute of African American Affairs.



Urban Pacific: Contemporary Indigenous Cultures from New Zealand & the Pacific

a lecture by Shigeyuki Kihara

Thursday, November 21
6 to 7:30 pm

Please RSVP for this event by Tuesday, November 19th here.

A native of Samoa, Shigeyuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist whose work examines the notions surrounding gender, history, and representation in post-colonial societies. Her solo exhibition, Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs (2008-9), was the MET’s first exhibition of contemporary Samoan art. This Fall, Kihara is in residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program.

Kihara will discuss a thriving contemporary urban movement amongst Maori and Pacific Islander communities from New Zealand. Mario A. Caro (NYU Draper Program) leads the conversation.

Asian/Pacific/American Institute
8 Washington Mews

Co-sponsored by the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Institute, Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, and Native American & Indigenous Students’ Group — and by the NYC Pacific Studies Working Group.

For more information about this event, click here.

Image: Rosanna Raymond & Katrina Talei Igglesden in performance. Photographer: Greg Semu.



Transgender/Transnational: Mapping Transgender Subjectivity Across National and Institutional Boundaries

The second installment of this year’s Globally Queer? series — a talk with Tey Meadow & Afsaneh Najmabadi

THIS PANEL DISCUSSION HAS BEEN POSTPONED.  WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE FOR THE SPRING 2014 SEMESTER.  MORE INFORMATION TO FOLLOW.  WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Tey Meadow, Sociology, Princeton University

Afsaneh Najmabadi, History, Harvard University

On the eve of the publication of Afsaneh Najmabadi’s new book, Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Iran, this panel puts Najmabadi into interdisciplinary conversation with Tey Meadow.  Together, Meadow and Najmabadi will discuss the different strategies adopted by gender nonconforming  subjects in their negotiations of cultural, medical, religious, and state-bureaucratic scripts for “being” a legible subject of gender.  Along the way, Meadow and Najmabadi will also consider the challenges of doing cross-cultural studies of transgender and the limits of categories.

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, and Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

photo courtesy of Doris Cheung



Sister to Sister

a panel discussion with Sharon Bridgforth, Jewelle Gomez, & Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano

Monday, December 9
6 pm

The Institute of African American Affairs (IAAA) at NYU presents a semester-long series (see also Brother to Brother on November 18th) of lectures, poetry readings, and film screenings with key figures, as well as emerging stars, of the LGBT intelligentsia. At a time when LGBT issues are openly being considered in mainstream consciousness, it prompts us to rethink the boundaries and conceptual paradigms surrounding the production of cultural knowledge from the perspectives of LGBT artists, scholars and activists. These conversations will be an exploration into the many LGBT narratives that examine and reveal perceptions, attitudes, continuous negotiations or renegotiations, and creative systems of survival.

20 Cooper Square, 7th Floor

Space is limited. Please RSVP to IAAA at 212-998-IAAA (4222).

For more information & updates please visit IAAA.

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality and the Institute of African American Affairs.