Fall 2014

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

a forum with Tey Meadow & Afsaneh Najmabadi

Thursday, September 25
6:30 to 8 pm

Tey Meadow, Sociology and Studies of Women, Gender & Sexuality, Harvard University

Afsaneh Najmabadi, History and Studies of Women, Gender & Sexuality, Harvard University

In this interdisciplinary conversation, Tey Meadow and Afsaneh 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 identity categories.

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

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



De Sidere 7

a  screening & discussion with Nicolas Grandi & Lata Mani

October 3, Friday
5 to 7pm

Renowned Indian feminist scholar Lata Mani and Argentinian filmmaker Nicolas Grandi present their recent collaboration, an experimental 38 minute video entitled De Sidere 7, a meditation on desire, queer embodiment, and urban space shot in New Delhi and Bangalore. The screening of the video will be accompanied by a discussion and Q&A with the filmmakers.

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

Co-Sponsored by the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program, the Asian/Pacific/American Institute, the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, South Asia@NYU, and the Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality.



On the Gelatinous: Three Movements

a lecture by Kyla Wazana Tompkins

October 7, Tuesday
6:30 to 8 pm

Kyla Wazana Tompkins, English and Gender & Women’s Studies, Pomona College

Kyla Wazana Tompkins’ work in critical race and queer theory, food studies, and American cultural and literary history has thus far focused on the objects, people, and spaces where sociality and materiality meet, spaces where we can begin to limn the outlines of biopolitical world as it is experienced in the granular qualities of the everyday. This lecture, which Tompkins is developing as part of a new project (tentatively titled “So Moved”), will look at multiple forms of movement – affective, emotional, political and physical – as they coalesce in and around particular food textures, in this case, the soft squishiness of gelatin. “On the Gelatinous” considers three texts – Martin Delany’s Blake, Herman Melville’s Poor Man’s Pudding, Rich’s Man’s Crumbs, and a recent pornographic screensaver by Afro-Canadian artist David Findlay entitled “Generous Gesture” – in which the haptic, movemential, and tactile quality that we might term “the gelatinous” allows for authors and artists to theorize different forms of movement and sociality.

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

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



Taking Offense: Trigger Warnings & the Neoliberal Politics of Endangerment

a panel discussion with Lisa Duggan, Jack Halberstam, Tavia Nyong’o, Ann PellegriniAvgi Saketopoulou, & Karen Shimakawa

October 14, Tuesday
6:30 to 8:15

Lisa Duggan, Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University

Jack Halberstam, American Studies & Ethnicity, Gender Studies, Comparative Literature, and English, USC Dornsife

Tavia Nyong’o, Performance Studies, New York University

Ann Pellegrini, Performance Studies and Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University

Avgi Saketopoulou, Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York University

Moderated by Karen Shimakawa, Performance Studies, New York University

Please note venue change:
20 Cooper Square, 7th Floor

Co-sponsored by the NYU Department of Performance Studies, Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics.



Anxiety, Whitman, Sympathy

a lecture by Jane Bennett

October 23, Thursday
6:30 to 8 pm

Jane Bennett, Political Science, Johns Hopkins University

American public culture is today full of anxiety, ceaselessly renewed by the news and entertainment media, by government claims and policies, by everyday exposure to extensive surveillance, disciplinary, and militarized technologies. Anxiety is, by and large, a system-maintaining affect; it has supported the regime of neo-liberal capitalism by de-politicizing the experience of its violent and unjust effects. One project for the Left today might be to build a machine for fighting anxiety. I explore this task, finding resources for it in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. There Whitman works to inflect anxiety sometimes toward righteous anger, but more often toward sympathy. Whitman invokes several different kinds of sympathy, from a sentimentalist version to an impersonal cosmic force akin to gravity. In each case, sympathy emerges as a modification of anxiety: the high-alert sensory agitation of anxiety is turned into a high-alert sensory discernment of similarities and resonances between bodies. Whitman helps us to discern a politicizing potential within sympathy and to help us to think about how to turn anxiety into something more politically potent.

Tisch Dean’s Conference Room
721 Broadway, 12th Floor

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



The Telephone Book @ 25

a two-day symposium with Emanuela Bianchi, Patricia Clough, Hent de Vries, Ben Kafka, Kyoo Lee, Lydia Liu, Mariano López SeoaneElissa Marder, Fred Moten, Ann PellegriniAntje Pfannkuchen, Ethan Philbrick, Willis G. Regier, Nimrod Reitman, Avital Ronell, Chadwick Smith, Elizabeth Weed, Shari Wolk, & Dominik Zechner

October 30 & 31, Thursday & Friday
October 30: 5 to 8 pm
October 31: 10:30 am to 6 pm

REGISTRATION NOT REQUIRED. NO RSVPs.

Emanuela Bianchi, Comparative Literature, New York University

Patricia Clough, Sociology and Women’s Studies, Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY

Hent de Vries, Humanities Center and Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University

Ben Kafka, Media, Culture & Communication, New York University

Kyoo Lee, Philosophy, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY

Thomas Y. Levin, German, Princeton University

Lydia LiuComparative Literature and Chinese, Columbia University

Mariano López Seoane, New York University Buenos Aires

Elissa Marder, French & Comparative Literature, Emory University

Fred Moten, English, UC-Riverside

Ann Pellegrini, Performance Studies and Social & Cultural Analysis, New York University

Antje Pfannkuchen, German, Dickinson College

Ethan Philbrick, Performance Studies, New York University

Willis G. Regier, Director, University of Illinois Press

Nimrod Reitman, German, New York University

Avital Ronell, Comparative Literature, New York University

Chadwick Smith, German, New York University

Elizabeth Weed, Pembroke Center for Teaching & Research on Women, Brown University

Shari Wolk, Media, Culture & Communication, New York University

Dominik Zechner, German, New York University

This two-day event brings together scholars in literary studies, philosophy, new media, sociology, gender and sexuality studies, and performance studies to discuss the ongoing impact of Avital Ronell’s path-breaking The Telephone Book, on the occasion of that book’s 25th anniversary.

Deutsches Haus @ NYU
42 Washington Mews

Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality and Deutsches Haus at NYU; with additional support from the NYU Department of Performance Studies; the NYU Department of Media, Culture & Communication; the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service); the NYU Office of the Vice-Provost for Faculty, Arts, Humanities and Diversity; and the NYU Office of the Dean for Humanities.


SCHEDULE:

Thursday, Oct 30th

Welcoming Remarks — Joy Connolly, Dean for the Humanities, NYU: 5 pm

Opening Panel: 5:15 to 7 pm
Emanuela Bianchi, Comparative Literature, NYU
Patricia Clough, Sociology and Women’s Studies, Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY
Mariano López Seoane, Faculty, NYU Buenos Aires
Fred Moten, English, University of California, Riverside
Moderator: Ann Pellegrini, Performance Studies and Social & Cultural Analysis; Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality, NYU

Performative Interlude: 7 pm
Ethan Philbrick, Performance Studies, NYU

Opening reception: 7:15 to 8 pm

Friday, Oct 31st

Welcoming Remarks — Willis G. Regier, Director, University of Illinois Press & Ulrich Baer, Vice Provost for Faculty, Arts, Humanities and Diversity, NYU: 10:30 am

Session One: 10:45 am to 12:15 pm
Nimrod Reitman, German, NYU
Shari Wolk, Media, Culture & Communication, NYU
Dominik Zechner, German, NYU
Moderator: Avital Ronell, Comparative Literature and German, NYU

Session Two: 1:15 to 2:45 pm
Hent de Vries, Humanities Center and Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University
Lydia Liu, Comparative Literature and Chinese, Columbia University
Elizabeth Weed, Pembroke Center for Teaching & Research on Women, Brown University
Moderator: Chadwick Smith, German, NYU

Session Three: 3 to 4:30 pm
Kyoo Lee, Philosophy, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
Elissa Marder, French and Comparative Literature, Emory University
Antje Pfannkuchen, German, Dickinson College
Moderator: Ben Kafka, Media, Culture & Communication, NYU

Concluding remarks: 4:30 to 5 pm
Avital Ronell, Comparative Literature and German, NYU

Closing reception: 5 to 6 pm

Gramaphonic Telephonalities, a performative installation by Thomas Y. Levin, German, Princeton University

NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED. NO RSVPs.

For more information about this event, please contact CSGS @ csgs(at)nyu.edu or @ 212-992-9540.



Intersections, Interventions, & the Homoerotics of Orientalism

a lecture by Joseph Boone

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

Joseph Boone, English, Gender Studies and Comparative Literature, USC Dornsife

One of the largely untold stories of Orientalism is the degree to which the Middle East has been associated with ‘deviant’ male homosexuality by scores of Western travelers, historians, writers, and artists for well over four hundred years. And this story, when put into contrapuntal interplay with representations emanating from Middle East, stands to reshape our preconceptions of Orientalism. Drawing on his recently published book, The Homoerotics of Orientalism, Boone addresses the theoretical, methodological, and ethical stakes involved in attempts to open a dialogue between Western perceptions and fantasies of homoeroticism in the Middle East, queer theory as it has evolved over the past decade, and the burgeoning field of sexuality studies in the Islamicate world.

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



Posthuman Antiquities: A Cross-Disciplinary Conference

a two-day conference with keynotes by Adriana Cavarero & Claudia Baracchi, and with Emanuela Bianchi, Sara Brill, Rebecca Hill, Brooke Holmes, Miriam Leonard, Ramona Naddaff, Michael Naas, Mark Payne, John Protevi, Kristin Sampson, & Giulia Sissa

November 14 & 15, Friday & Saturday
9:15 am to 8 pm

Claudia Baracchi, Humanities Education, University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy

Emanuela Bianchi, Comparative Literature, New York University

Sara Brill, Philosophy, Fairfield University

Adriana Cavarero, Philosophy, Education & Psychology, University of Verona, Italy

Rebecca Hill, Media & Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

Brooke Holmes, Classics, Princeton University

Miriam Leonard, Greek & Latin, University College, London

Michael Naas, Philosophy, DePaul University

Ramona Naddaff, Rhetoric, UC Berkeley

Mark Payne, Classics, University of Chicago

John Protevi, French Studies and Philosophy, Louisiana State University

Kristin Sampson, Philosophy, University of Bergen, Norway

Giulia Sissa, Political Science, UCLA

What can an inquiry into antiquity offer posthumanist thinking on the body, on nature and its relationship with technology, and on the fundamental interrelatedness of the physical, the biological, the psychical, the social and the artifactual?

Greek and Roman literary, philosophical, and medical texts are resplendent with sites in which ‘materiality’ and ‘embodiment’ (in current parlance) erupt into a field of questioning, deliberation, care, and experimentation. A return to antiquity is particularly pertinent in the wake of the philosophical demise of the sovereignty of the modern individual human subject and the rise not only of approaches such as deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and feminism, but also recent turns to chaos theory, complexity theory, vitalism, affect theory, environmental philosophy, and animal studies. As with these contemporary discourses, classical thinking displaces and complicates the modern notion of subjectivity, and finds movement and life inherently at work in both organic and inorganic phenomena.

This international conference seeks to foster conversation and cross-pollination between these vastly different periods positioned, as they both are, as transitional zones. We propose that through an encounter with “the Greeks,” we can not only re-imagine the trajectories and potentialities of contemporary posthumanist theorizing, but also interrogate narratives of origin, legacy, and linear temporality.

Hemmerdinger Hall, Silver Center
100 Washington Square East

Conference organized by Emanuela Bianchi, Sara Brill and Brooke Holmes. Co-sponsored by the NYU Department of Comparative Literature; Center for Ancient Studies; Gallatin Fund: Classics & the Contemporary World; Faculty Global Research Initiative; Dean of the College of Arts & Science; Dean for Humanities, Arts & Science; Humanities Initiative; Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality; Department of Philosophy; Department of Classics; Department of Media, Culture & Communication; A. S. Onassis Program in Hellenic Studies; and Program in Gender & Sexuality Studies.

And by the Fairfield University College of Arts and Science; and the Postclassicisms Network.



Shaming, Flaming: Lawrence King & the Murderous Regulation of Gender Non-conforming Youth

a forum with Ken Corbett & Gayle M. Salamon

December 5, Friday
5 to 7 pm

Ken Corbett, Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, New York University

Gayle M. Salamon, English, Princeton University

In February 2008, Larry King, a 15-year-old gender nonconforming teenager of color, was shot and killed at point blank range by his 14-year-old classmate, Brandon McInerney.  In the ensuing murder trial of McInerney, the defense effectively redescribed Larry King’s gender non-conformity and presumed gay-ness as forms of aggression against McInerney.  Larry’s “flamboyance” became the smoking gun that caused his killer to snap.  The jury was unable to reach consensus and a mistrial was declared.  (McInerney eventually pled guilty to lesser charges, avoiding a retrial.)  Both of the speakers at this forum attended McInerney’s trial in the summer of 2011.  And both are now completing book-length studies that meditate on the Larry King case to examine the everyday forms of violence that ensnare queer subjects, where “queer” includes queerness of gender identity, sexuality, race, and bodily comportment.

Jurow Hall, Silver Center
100 Washington Square East

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