April 5: Homoerotic Subjectivities Against, With, and Beyond Cubanía


Homoerotic Subjectivities Against, With, and Beyond Cubanía

a lunch talk with Margaret Frohlich
Friday, April 5
12:30 to 1:45 pm
Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
41-51 East 11th Street, Room 741

Margaret Frohlich, Spanish and Portuguese, Dickinson College, and CSGS Visiting Scholar
Fidel Castro’s acknowledgement in 2010 of the imprisonment of homosexuals in military-agricultural work camps and assumption of personal responsibility for not putting an end to discrimination based on sexuality is part of Cuba’s current social, cultural, and political climate. Through an analysis of literature, film, and media, together with interviews conducted at the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), this presentation considers the antagonism and alliance between the homosexual subject and changing understandings of Cuban nationalism. The role of sexuality in the island’s current financial and cultural reforms is situated within a broader international context of challenges to the homogenizing effects of Gay Pride celebrations and the de-politicizing of the Gay Rights Movement in consumer culture. The talk will explore the implications of both championing sexual diversity and implementing regulatory practices of identity and what this coupling tells us not only about the mobilization of sexualities in Cuba but also about sexuality as a site of contestation of power between the state and culture.
Margaret Frohlich is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Dickinson College with a PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literature from Stony Brook University. Her book, Framing the Margin: Nationality and Sexuality across Borders , won the international competition for the Victoria Urbano Prize for Criticism awarded by the International Association of Feminine Hispanic Literature and Culture. Studies in Hispanic Cinemas 8.2 (2012) recently published her article “What of unnatural bodies? The discourse of nature in Lucía Puenzo’s XXY and El niño pez/The Fish Child.” Her research also appears in the anthology Lesbian Realities/Lesbian Fictions in Contemporary Spain and in the journals Letras Femeninas and Romance Review.


This event is free and open to the public. Wheelchair access is at 85-87 University Place.
For more information, please contact CSGS at 212-992-9545 or email csgs(at)nyu.edu.
Facebook event page here.



Share