[ecrea] First CIRQUE (Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca Queer) Conference: What’s New in Queer Studies?

/
/First CIRQUE (Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca Queer) Conference:/
/What’s New in Queer Studies?/
/L’Aquila, March 31–April 2, 2017/
   A PDF version of this Call for papers is available here: CIRQUE 
Conference Call for Papers L’Aquila March 2017 
<http://cirque.unipi.it/2017conference/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2016/06/CIRQUE-Conference-Call-for-Papers-LAquila-March-2017.pdf>
In the late 1980s, theorists such as Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky 
Sedgwick and Teresa De Lauretis questioned and redefined existing 
discourses on identity, gender and sexuality, and called for new 
critical engagements in order to challenge the supposedly ‘natural’ and 
stable correspondence between sex, gender and desire. This resulted in 
the creation of the hybrid epistemic field of queer studies, which has 
led in turn to multiple, evolving theoretical recodifications and 
deconstructions of supposedly fixed and coherent identity categories.
The intersections of sex/sexuality studies, gender studies, and queer 
theories have productively influenced and stimulated reflection within 
and across many disciplines. Explorations of the embodied 
sexed/gendered/queer self have enabled critics to interrogate and 
deconstruct the methodological and epistemic foundations (as well as the 
tacit assumptions and colonizing grasp) of such disciplines. The 
production of knowledge has thus been shown to inhere in operations of 
power, which both authorize and constitute legitimate subjects and 
objects, at all levels of practice and discourse. These critical 
explorations have called into question Western modernity’s disciplinary 
regime itself, both as biopolitics – in its need of calculable and 
identifiable bodies – and, increasingly, beyond it, as bodies are 
molecularized into digits and data bundles, materialized only when in a 
state of flux, refigured as transformable.
Moreover, queer has shown its usefulness as an analytic and political 
category well beyond the questioning of sex and gender. At the most 
abstract, and at the same time most concrete level, it allows us to 
interrogate in the most radical way the categories through which every 
society determines the destiny of its members, and to dismantle the 
machinery of domination and exclusion which is implicit in them and 
which is deployed through them. Accordingly, the first conference 
organised by CIRQUE– Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca Queer 
(Inter-University Centre for Queer Research – www.cirque.unipi.it) 
wishes to engage with critical debates on queer issues in a variety of 
fields and encourages both analytical readings and practice-based 
workshops spanning all disciplines.
As well as an opportunity for global, multi-, inter- and 
transdisciplinary reflections on queer issues, defined in the broadest 
and most inclusive terms, the conference aims to queer the very 
modalities through which knowledge and cultural practices are 
articulated, shared, discussed and validated within and beyond the 
academic environment. One important aspect of this is that sessions will 
not be organized as presentations but as discussions: the full text of 
all contributions will be made available in advance, so that the contact 
time between presenters and audience will be devoted to a group 
discussion in order to maximize audience engagement and participation. 
All presenters will have the option to submit a revised version of their 
papers to /Whatever/, the peer-reviewed, open access, international 
online journal of CIRQUE; one of the aims of this format is to help 
strengthen their arguments with a view to subsequent publication. The 
relevant issue of/Whatever/ will be published by the end of 2017.
Confirmed keynote speakers: Marie-Hélène/Sam Bourcier (Universitè Lille 
III, France), Laura Corradi (Università della Calabria, Italy) Carmen 
Dell’Aversano (Università di Pisa, Italy), Massimo Fusillo (Università 
dell’Aquila, Italy), Marco Pustianaz (Università del Piemonte Orientale, 
Italy), William Spurlin (Brunel University, United Kingdom).
We welcome intercultural and interdisciplinary approaches and invite 
proposals for papers, panels, round-table sessions, thematic workshops, 
performances and other queerings of formats on topics including, but not 
limited to:

   * Queer Embodiments
   * Animal Queer
   * Neuroqueer and Neurodiversity
   * The Queer Politics of Migration
   * Queer Legal Theory
   * Queer Economies
   * Queer Pedagogy
   * Queer Genealogies: History, Memory, Identities
   * Queering Categories of Race
   * Queer Crip
   * Transnational and Cross-Cultural Queerness
   * Queer Pornographies
   * Queer Cinema and Tv Serials
   * Queer and Digital Media
   * Queer through Social Media
   * Queer Kinship
   * Queer and Posthuman
   * Queer Heterosexualities
   * Queer and Mainstream Culture
   * Queer Temporalities
   * Queer Spatialities
   * Queer and Post-Queer
   * Queer Ethics
   * Queer Performativity
   * Queer Feminism(s)
   * Queer Activisms
   * Queer Anarchism(s)
   * Queer Hermeneutics

Those wishing to participate should send a 300-word abstract (for 
papers) or a 2-page outline for other activity formats (round-tables, 
workshops, performances…), together with a brief bio (including contact 
details) by September, 30, 2016 to: (miroslawit /at/ yahoo.it)
Participants will be notified of acceptance by October, 31, 2016.
The time for individual papers in parallel sessions will be 30 minutes. 
Time slots for other activities will be negotiated with the presenters. 
As mentioned, all presenters will be asked to share papers, and detailed 
descriptions of other activities, with all participants by March 1st, 2017.
Conference registration will be E50 for tenured faculty, E25 for 
everyone else; this will include coffee breaks. If you feel strongly 
about participating but have serious economic issues which make it 
difficult for you to do so, please write to__explain your predicament: 
we might be able to help.
All food at the conference will be vegan, not only because of the 
sizable intersection between queer and animal rights theorists and 
activists, but because this policy makes it possible to provide for a 
number of dietary requirements in the most practical way. If you have 
additional food issues we should be considering, please contact us and 
we will do our best to accommodate them.
L’Aquila is the capital of Abruzzo, in central Italy. Although the city 
centre was hit by an earthquake in April 2009, both the city and its 
surroundings remain popular destinations for travellers who want to 
enjoy the naturalistic beauties of Parco del Gran Sasso and the quaint 
charm of little medieval towns such as Celano, Santo Stefano di 
Sessanio, Rocca Calascio, Campo Imperatore, Bominaco. The city itself 
still offers a number of interesting destinations such as the Spanish 
Fort, the San Bernardino and Collemaggio basilicas, and the Fountain of 
the 99 spouts. Restoration and rebuilding are ongoing, and the 
interesting collections of two museums (MUNDA for ancient art up to the 
XVIII century, MUSPAC for contemporary art), as well as the city centre 
itself, are again becoming accessible.
L’Aquila can be reached in 90 minutes from Rome by either car or bus.
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