The date of our next forum will be next Wednesday 22 February at 5pm. We also have a winning topic for our next forum and so we will be discussing: Kadji Amin's, 'We are All Nonbinary: A Brief History of Accidents'. You can find the article here if you are a UoB student.

 

If you are not a UoB student, or the link isn't working for you, you should be able to find the article easily via a search at your institutional library: Amin, K. (2022) 'We are All Nonbinary: A Brief History of Accidents', in Representations (Berkeley, Calif.), Vol.158 (1), p.106-119. 

 

If you have any problems accessing the article, please let us know. Likewise, if you are not able to read the article before the forum, please do still come along to the forum to say hello and listen in. 

 

For those who haven't joined us before, we always want our sessions to be friendly and inclusive. If you have any questions or worries about attending, please don't hesitate to get in touch here - Andy would be happy to chat to you before the forum if helpful and let you know what to expect.

On the occasion of UK Disability History Month (16 November - 16 December), this session will take a deeper look at what the possibility of feminist/queer/crip alliances has to offer to the field of sexuality and gender studies. Taking Alison Kafer's 2013 book Feminist, Queer, Crip as a starting point, this session will encourage us to reflect on the intersections of gender, sexuality, disability, and race in discussions of biopolitics, oppression, and narratives of normalisation.

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What does it mean to recognise disability as a site for political engagement and a source of knowledge? What do disabled perspectives have to offer the study of gender and sexuality? How may we foster intersectional debates and imagine shared futures?

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To help inform the discussion, you are encouraged to read Alison Kafer's Feminist, Queer, Crip, particularly chapter 3 on 'Debating Feminist Futures'. The text is available as an ebook on FindIt. The reading is not a requirement for the discussion, though, and there will be a brief recap at the beginning of the session. So please do come along even if you are unable to read the whole chapter.

 

This is an online event. To ensure you receive the Zoom link, please join our mailing list before the session by clicking the 'join us' button below.

Join us for our first forum of 2022/23! 

 

This will be a welcoming session to (re)introduce ROLES to new and returning postgraduate researchers at the University of Birmingham and other institutions. Facilitated by ROLES co-convenors, Andy Irwin and Vanesa Medina-Godoy, this will be a chance to meet other fellow postgraduate researchers in sexuality and gender studies and discuss our shared research interests. We will also share our plans for the network for this new academic year, introducing exciting new events and features.

This is an online event. To ensure you receive the Zoom link, please join our mailing list before the session by clicking the 'join us' button below.

Join us for our next forum of the year for a discussion on approaches to Black/queer histories, facilitated by UoB's own Greg Salter. Building on last month's discussion, this session will continue exploring the challenges of queer historicism through an intersectional lens. Taking Stephen Best's None Like Us as a starting point, the session will consider what we might gain by NOT trying to find ourselves in history, NOT trying to repair the gaps and ruptures in the archive, NOT trying to recover what has been lost. How might we reappraose the melancholy of Black and queer historicism?

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Greg Salter is a lecturer in Art History at the University of Birmingham working on art from Britain since 1945, particularly through the lens of gender and sexuality.

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To help inform the discussion, you are encouraged to read the first section of Stephen Best's None Like Us, 'On Thinking Like a Work of Art'. There will be a brief recap at the beginning of the session, so please do still come along even if you are unable to read the whole chapter. The zoom link and a copy of the text will be circulated to our mailing list.

Increasingly, organisations are choosing to 'mark/celebrate' LGBT history month in February. This session invites a discussion on the questions 'what is LGBT history' and 'how do we imagine queer futures?' Facilitated by ROLES co-convenor Andy Irwin, the session asks us to consider what is at stake when we talk about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender history. Is it a history of oppression and violence, activism and progress, or both? Whom does it include and whom does it exclude? What purpose does a 'history month' serve? When did L/G/B/T/LGBT histor(ies) begin? What are the possibilities for LGBT futures? Are these futures optimistic?

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To help inform the discussion, you are encouraged to read any (or, if you have time, all) of the following. They are brilliant and thought-provoking works:

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Halperin, D. (1990) One hundred years of homosexuality: and other essays on Greek love. Chapter 2, '"Homosexuality", a cultural construct: an exchange with Richard Schneider', pp.41-53. (Link to ebook on FindIt Bham).

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Love, H. (2007) Feeling backward: loss and the politics of queer history. Introduction, pp.1-30. (Link to ebook on FindIt Bham). 

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Halberstam, J. (2005) In a queer time and place: transgender bodies, subcultural lives. Ch1, 'Queer Temporality and Postmodern Geographies', pp.12-43. (Link to ebook on FindIt Bham).

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Snediker, M. (2006) 'Queer Optimism', in Postmodern Culture, 16:3, np. 27 pages. (Link to article).

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But please do come along to the session for the discussion even if you are unable to read the articles. To ensure you receive the Zoom link, please join our mailing list before the session and we will ensure you receive the joining instructions.

Join us for our first forum of 2022 as ROLES' own Vanesa Medina-Godoy delivers a paper on her research entitled 'Decolonising Queer Studies: Cuir Americas'. Vanesa will give a brief overview of the cuir framework, discuss why decolonial approaches are needed in queer and gender studies, and then share a bit about her research and how she applies the cuir framework to questions of cultural memory and queer history. 

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Attendees are invited to read the short text (7-page) 'Cuir/Queer Américas: Translation, Decoloniality, and the Incommensurable' as a route to discussing Vanesa's research. Please do still attend if you are unable to read the article as ROLES Committee members will give an overview of the text at the start of the session. 

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You can find the text on FindIt Bham. The Zoom links for sessions are circulated to our mailing list so do sign-up to avoid missing out on our forum discussions!

Join ROLES' own Natalie Connor for a short presentation: 'Breaking Boundaries and the Binary: Re-imagining hegemonic masculinity in a globalizing space', with an opportunity for questions. Natalie is a candidate on UoB's Sexuality and Gender Studies MRes programme and a member of ROLES' organising committee.

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We will also be discussing Christine Beasley's (2008) 'Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity in a Globalizing World', an influence on Natalie's thesis and in gender studies scholarship more generally. You can find the article on FindIt here, but we will also send around a copy to everyone signed up to ROLES' mailing list.

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If you haven't already completed the Google form below, click 'join us' to receive the Zoom link and details of future forums.