April 26: The Only White Woman in the Village



The Only White Woman in the Village

a lunch talk with Leena-Maija Rossi
Friday, April 26
12:30 to 1:45 pm
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
41-51 East 11th Street, Room 709
(please note room change)
Leena-Maija Rossi, Gender Studies, University of Helsinki; Visual Culture, University of Turku; and CSGS Visiting Scholar
Studies on whiteness have proliferated in humanities and social studies during the past ten years. Scholars interested in the problematics of whiteness have argued that this new field of study may produce useful tools for anti-racist activism, and complement the theorization of “race” in a useful way. However, there has also been a lot of criticism, which maintains that studying whiteness only re-positions its hegemony and is not able to unravel its normativity. These critical accounts parallel in an interesting way with some critical notions directed towards the study of heterosexuality.
Some similarities between queer studies of straightness and anti-racist studies of whiteness will be discussed, the title being a tribute to two important cultural texts: the television comedy series Little Britain (and its sketch “The Only Gay in the VIllage”) and James Baldwin’s essay “Stranger in the VIllage.”
Leena-Maija Rossi is a Principal Investigator in Gender Studies at Universty of Helsinki, and Adjunct Professor in Visual Culture at University of Turku, Finland. She is also member of the research project Abusive Sexuality and Sexual Violence in Contemporary Culture (2012-14, University of Jyväskylä). Currently she works as the Executive Director at the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York.
This event is free and open to the public. Wheelchair access is at 85-87 University Place.
For more information, please contact CSGS at csgs(at)nyu.edu or call 212-992-9540.



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