Seminar in the City: Queer Migrations

	May 30: AIDS/Art/Work Conference

	Starting June 2: Seminar in the City: Queer Migrations

SEMINARS IN THE CITY

About Seminars in the City
Current Seminar
Past Seminars

Summer 2008

Queer Migrations

June 2, July 7, and August 4 (first Monday of each month)
Facilitated by Carlos Ulises Decena, Rutgers University
LGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Room 101
6-8 PM

Migration has been crucial to the formation and fostering of many queer communities in the United States; however, population movement has only recently come into prominence in queer studies in this country and internationally. This series of seminars will introduce the participants to this dynamic field of scholarship through a discussion of case studies from the past and present. Our readings will include essays by John D’Emilio, Eithne Lubheid, Adi Kuntsman, Kath Weston, Susana Peña and others as well as the illustrated autobiography/graphic testimonial Sexilio/Sexile by Jaime Cortez. Our main objective is to understand the importance and interaction of sexuality with traditional as well as emerging themes such as ethnic/racial assimilation, transnationalism, and homeland politics.

The free reading group will meet at the LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street, in room 101 from 6 to 8 PM on the first Monday of each month, June to August. To RSVP and obtain a course reading packet contact CLAGS by phone (212-817-1955) or by email (clags@gc.cuny.edu). CLAGS strives to make all of its events accessible to our members. ASL interpretation can be provided for any CLAGS event if requested 10 or more working days prior to the event. If you have other accessibility needs, please contact the CLAGS office, with a relay operator when necessary.

Seminars in the City is supported by the New York Council for the Humanities.

About Seminars in the City
CLAGS initiated the Seminars in the City program in July 1998. The series reflects CLAGS’s commitment to providing a public forum for intellectual discussion and debate on and off the college campus. Seminars in the City also connects academics, activists, and the larger community. As Alisa Solomon, CLAGS’s former Executive Director, points out, "Seminars in the City is one of the many ways in which CLAGS continues its commitment to bridging the academy and the community to share knowledge about gay and lesbian lives."

In a partnership with The Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, the monthly series offers an informal but intellectually charged environment for addressing major works of LGTBQ studies. The aim is to make complex and often abstruse ideas engaging for nonacademic readers. Previous Seminars leaders, themselves CLAGS board members, have found the Seminars experience "a delight." Anne Pellegrini, who taught "Introduction to Queer Theory" in the fall of 1998 recalls that, "the experience was a powerful and pleasurable reminder of the vital links possible between the academy and the streets, theory and living."

Elizabeth Freeman, who is a former CLAGS Board Member and the first organizer of the series, is proud of its success so far. Freeman says that the many semesters have generated a great deal of excitement, and the conversations in the seminars have been provocative, spirited, and insightful. "The success has already given us a sense of the intellectual, political, and artistic energy that thinkers outside the academy contribute to our shared inquiry," says Freeman. Each semester centers around a particular theme and is led by a CLAGS Board member with an expertise in the field.

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The Graduate Center . City University of New York . Room 7.115 . 365 Fifth Avenue . New York, NY 10016 . 212.817.1955 . clags@gc.cuny.edu