POSTPONED | The (im)possibility of queer presentism

Description

This event falls on a planned UCU strike day and has been postponed to 26 April 2023.

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Convenors

• Gabby Colangelo (University of Cambridge)
• Aaron Muldoon (University of Cambridge)
• Brooke Nagler (University of Cambridge)

Summary

‘The (im)possibility of queer presentism’ conference and workshop explores what it might mean for contemporary queer culture to adopt ‘presentism’ as a way of both looking at and living in the world. Since its inception in the early 1990s, queer theory (and its predecessor, Gay and Lesbian Studies) has been principally concerned with time. Much work in gay history in the 1980s was singularly occupied with demonstrating that “we have always been here,” while the social constructionist turn heralded a new wave of research concerned with understanding how exactly gender and sexuality have been historically constituted. The HIV/AIDS crisis prompted an urgent movement towards memorialisation and community memory projects. Since then, queer theory has largely stayed true to its founding mottos of “know your history,” and “never forget.”

The aim of this conference and workshop is to encourage participants to think about how an overriding interest in the past might eschew the possibility of understanding queerness in the present. Frequently, the notion of queer presentism is construed as a threat to various projects seen as central to queer identity and community formation (memorialisation, archiving, the reclamation of erased pasts etc). But this often results in teleological historical narratives in which the queer past is read for its ability to create a stable queer present. ‘The (im)possibility of queer presentism’ questions the fixity of this relationship between history and the present.

‘The (im)possibility of queer presentism’ consists of a conference followed by a workshop. The conference comprises two panels of speakers and a keynote address. We welcome proposals for papers for the panels from postgraduates, early career fellows and other junior faculty. The conference will be followed by a collaborative workshop that welcomes participants from a wide range of disciplines to engage in a facilitated discussion, reflecting both on the conference proceedings and participants’ own ideas about queer presentism.

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