Mind the Gap 2023: Disrupting Divisions

Saturday 29 July – Online (Birkbeck, University of London)

09.00-09.15 Registration + Welcome

09.15-10.30 Keynote Talk TBC + Q&A

10.30-10.45 Comfort Break

10.45-12.00 LGBTQ+ Human Rights: Centering Migration, Conflict, and Solidarity

“Queer Protection: (En)countering Protection Strategies in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp” – Gabriel/le du Plessix (University of Warwick)

“When I Think of You, My Homeland, My Heart Can Only Cry”: Exploring Queer Ukrainian Migrants’ Diasporic Consciousness and Physical Engagements with Ukrainian Diaspora Communities” – Freya Proudman (University College London)

TBC

12.00-12.15 Comfort Break

12.15-13.30 Celebrating Trans Power: Resistance and Care

“Transgender Resistance on the Digital Dancefloor: Counteracting ‘Anti-Trans’ Narratives and Violent Data Politics by Imagining a Digital Transgender Epistemology” – Christoffer Koch Andersen (University of Cambridge)

“Care In/And Community: Supporting Trans Young Artists at American Opera Companies” – Danielle Buonaiuto (City University of New York)

TBC

13.30-14.30 Lunch Break

14.30-15.45 Educating Queerly: What We Can Learn from LGBTQ+ Learning

“Queer(y)ing STEM Education Spaces: A Poetic Retrospective Autoethnography of a Queer Student’s Lived Experiences in Australian Postsecondary Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education – Phil Kairns (Monash University)

“School Librarians and LGBT+ Students” – Bérengère Stassin (Université de Lorraine)

“Queerly Joyful Practices in Calgary, Alberta’s Public Schools” – Sarah Beech (University of Calgary)

15.45-16.00 Comfort Break

16.00-17.15 Viral Considerations: Rethinking Health and Community

“Like a Virus: Tactile Kinship in Queer Performance Art” – Abhisek Pal (Jadavpur University)

“Queer/Crip Killjoys, Oracles, and the ‘Post-Pandemic’ Stage of COVID-19″ – Moira Armstrong (Birkbeck, University of London)

”What’s in a Word: Mpox, Monkeypox and the Language We Need to Destigmatize LGBTQ+ People Experiencing Illness” – Andrew Kaye Kauffmann (Community/Activist Speaker)

17.15-17.30 Comfort Break

17.30-18.45 Being Political: Queer Understandings of Ethics, Solidarity, and Justice

“The Ethics of Outing” – Samantha Leyerle (City University of New York)

“Queer Futures and Intergenerational Solidarity in Spain” – Angela Acosta (Davidson College)

“Disrupting Cissexual Difference and Cisgendered Embodiment: A Transfeminist Analysis of Elizabeth Grosz’s Incorporeal Ontoethics” – İlkan Can İpekçi (Sabancı Üniversitesi)

18.45-19.00 Close for the Day

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Sunday 30 July – In-Person (King’s College London)

10.30-10.45 Registration + Welcome

10.45-12.00 Authentically LGBTQ+ Online: Self-Expression on Digital Media

“Instagram Representation of Hijra Identities from Bangladesh” – Tanvir Alim (University of Glasgow)

“Repression, Resistance and Revolution: The Politics of International Queer Communication in Southeast Asia” – Russell Yap (Nanyang Technological University)

“Decolonising Cyberqueer Spaces: Assertions and Negotiations in Indian Online Communities” – Tanvi Kanchan (SOAS, University of London)

12.00-12.15 Comfort Break

12.15-13.45 Disruptive Representation?: Popular Queer Constructions and Challenges in Literature, Film, and TV

“Pirates, Interrupted: Embodying Queer (Dis)comfort and Failure in Our Flag Means Death” – Andreea Moise (Universitatea din București)

“Queer Translation in Lilting” – Cheng-Chai Chiang (University of California, Berkeley)

“Mad Wilderness: An EcoGothic Reading of the ‘Crazy Lesbian’ Trope in Machado’s The Resident – Tara Labovich (Independent Scholar)

TBC

13.45-15.00 Lunch Break

15.00-16.15 Finding (Safe) Spaces: Navigating and Queering Cityscapes

“Mapping Urban Indian Queer Spaces as Sites of Resistance against Capitalist Notions of Development” – Udhriti Sarkar (SOAS, University of London)

“Queer Liberation and Collective Effervescence: The Everyday Utopias of Anti-Racist Sexual Cultures” – Tiago Machado Costa (University of Nottingham)

“Disrupting Understandings of Safe Spaces for Singaporean Gay, Bisexual, and Queer (GBQ+) Men: Creating or Engaging with Invisibilised Spaces to Remain Safe” – RainbowAsia (Community/Activist Speaker)

16.15-16.30 Comfort Break

16.30-17.45 How To Parent: LGBTQ+ Experiences of Raising Children

“Navigating Time and Relationships: Gay Men’s Transnational Reproductive Journey towards Fatherhood – Jung Chen (University of Cambridge)

“Transgressing and Disrupting Boundaries and Binaries: Exploring the Experiences of Bisexual+ Mothers in Queer and Non-Queer Parenting Spaces” – Ellen Davenport-Pleasance (University College London)

My Surrogacy Journey (Community/Activist Speaker)

17.45-18.00 Closing Statement

18.00-18.30 Disruptive Keynote TBC

18.30-20.30 Reception

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Please register here