In the teeth of empire: Making a Mess and Other Queer Orientations
Affiliated Society or Committee Name: Queer Caucus for ArtPushing up against a singular codification of queerness, in the teeth of empire draws upon the multiplicity of queer orientations often framed by the conditions and histories of heteronormative settler violence. Parallel to the work outlined by anthropologist Audra Simpson and Indigenous and queer studies scholar Mark Rifkin, queer bodies have often been marked as different from settler colonial frameworks that have shaped normative ways of being. While the language of refusal has often been employed as a strategy for self-determination within conditions of exclusion, queer bodies have needed to exist within and in spite of these heteronormative structures. In particular, trans*, non-binary, and gender nonconforming bodies have historically troubled the ways queer identity formations have been narrativized, making a mess of the language, discourse, and visual remnants of those experiences. While heteronormative structures have historically attempted to coerce queer bodies from recognition based around tropes of difference, this discussion uses the specificity of experiences that begin to enable more inclusive and complex sensibilities of being – where a multiplicity of orientations disrupt singularizing these narratives. We invite contributors from interdisciplinary fields of practice such as: artists, scholars, theorists, curators, and other cultural producers.
Field of Study:
United States of America
Twenty-First Century
Class
Queer/Gay
Radical Art
Chairs:
Oli Rodriguez,California State University, Los Angeles - oliveriovrodriguez@gmail.com
,
Dan Paz, - danpaz@gmail.com
and
Alejandro Acierto,Queer Caucus for Art -