A Queer Story About Opera: Diva-Worship and Homoeroticism in Berio's Recital I (for Cathy).

Megan Jenkins, Doctoral Student in Musicology, CUNY Graduate Center 

Ostensibly, the narrative of Recital I (for Cathy) (1972) traces the descent into madness of an opera diva who is perhaps slightly past her prime. Jenkins suggests, however, that there is a complex network of subjectivities in Recital--a network that allows for any number of readings, including a story of homoeroticism in the opera house.
 

Graduate Center, Room C203, 7-9pm 
 

A roundtable discussion with Paisley Currah, Executive Director, CLAGS and Associate Professor, Political Science, Brooklyn College;  Don Kulick, Director, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York University; T. Benjamin Singer, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English, Rutgers University and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at Barnard; Dean Spade, Adjunct Instructor, Columbia Law School and Harvard Law School; Sel J. Wahng, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc./Medical and Health Research Association of NYC and Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Professor, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, Columbia University; Jillian T. Weiss, Assistant Professor of Law and Society, Ramapo College, New Jersey.

Carlos Ulises Decena, Assistant Professor, Department of Women's and Gender Studies and Department of Puerto Rican & Hispanic Caribbean Studies, Rutgers University
 

Privileging the disclosure of a homosexual identity--"coming out"--blinds investigators to negotiations of the closet that do not resort to the confession, especially among sexual minorities of color. Drawing from Spanish grammar and from ethnographic research among Dominican immigrant homosexual men living in New York City, this presentation proposes the concept of the “sujeto tácito” to suggest that “coming out” may sometimes be redundant, a statement of the obvious. The concept of the “tacit subject” underlines that what is already obvious is neither secret nor silent.
 

Graduate Center, Room 9204, 7-9pm 
 

What has become of lesbian feminism? Activists, scholars, and writers on race, class and sexuality will convene for cross-generational discussions that ask several questions: How does the 21st century lesbian community differ from the first 'organized' lesbian groups in the US? Do young lesbians today feel any connection to the feminist movement - and vice versa?  How are lesbian and feminist issues today similar or at odds with each other?  And, ultimately, does lesbian feminism still exist?

Lesbians, Gays and Their Parents: Discovery, Stigma, Adjustment, and Connection

Michael C. LaSala, Ph.D., LCSW, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, Rutgers University and Psychotherapist, Institute for Personal Growth, Highland Park, New Jersey

Dr. LaSala will present findings based on in-depth research interviews with 65 families of white, African American, and Latino gay and lesbian youth.  Factors that help and hinder parental adjustment to the coming out process will be discussed along with implications for gay and lesbian mental health and HIV prevention for young gay males.  Similarities and differences among families of different ethnicities will also be described. 
 

Graduate Center, Room 9204, 7-9pm
 

Sexual Sedition: From the Espionage Laws to the War on Terror
 

14th Annual David R. Kessler Lecture in Lesbian and Gay Studies
 

This year’s Kessler Lecture will honor Carole S. Vance, Ph.D., M.P.H.  Dr. Vance is an anthropologist whose work deals with sexuality - particularly policy, visual representation, rights, and science. She is the author of many articles about sexuality, as well as the editor of Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality.  She is currently editing a book about sex trafficking, and has co-edited (with Alice Miller) a special issue of Health and Human Rights focusing on Sexuality, Human Rights, and Health (2004).  Dr. Vance teaches at Columbia University, in public health, anthropology, and law.  

She will be introduced with testimonials from Douglas Crimp and Ann Snitow. 
 

Graduate Center, Proshansky Auditorium, 7pm
 

“My love is like a red, red rose...”: The Political Economy of Romance and the Global Floriculture Industry
 

Saadia Toor,  Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York
 

This project examines the nexus between patriarchy and capitalism in the current period of cultural and economic globalization. Using a materialist feminist framework, it focuses on the relationship between an increasingly globalized and commodified culture of romance - as an important element of the institution of heterosexuality - and the burgeoning world trade in cut-flowers, in order to deconstruct the political economy of romance in the late-capitalist world system.
 

Graduate Center, Room 9204, 7-9pm