Race, Sex, Power: New Movements in Black and Latina/o Sexualities
DATE: April 11-12, 2008
LOCATION: University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Sponsored by The Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture and The Center for Gender Studies
Over the past decade, racialized representations of Black and Latina/o sexualities as perverse Others have been systematically challenged by scholars and political and cultural activists from myriad disciplinary fields. The steady emergence of new exhibitions, performances, media, writings, virtual communities, and activist groups bear witness to the importance of how Black and Latina/o people love and express themselves sexually.
This conference brings attention to these “bodies of knowledge” – in their biological, social, cultural, and political forms ˆ in order to rethink how the relationships between race, sexuality, and power has, and continues to, shape Black and Latina/o sexualities in the U.S. This conference intends to highlight debates, ideas, and practices relating to the meanings assigned to black and brown bodies in the U.S., how black and brown people experience their socially regulated bodies, and how those bodies are positioned vis-à-vis knowledge, truth, politics, and history.
Bringing together activists, artists, independent scholars, faculty, practitioners, and students from a broad range of disciplines and fields, the conference aims to address issues of sexual desire and pleasure, cultural activism, black-brown dialogues and coalition-building, creating and performing sexual identities, human rights and social justice, and citizenship, among other topics.
The conference venue presents a unique opportunity for the participants to examine critically the state of empirically grounded, historicized, and theoretically informed inquiries and practices around Black and Latina/o bodies and sexualities. Equally important in this moment then, is the recognition and scrutiny of how these interventions have made an impact on the fields of African American studies; Latina/o studies; women‚s and gender studies; sexuality studies; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer studies; as well as mainstream disciplines like literature, sociology, history, public health, psychology, art history, public policy, etc.
Participants from all disciplinary fields and perspectives who wish to engage with these issues are welcome. Through this interdisciplinary forum, the conference seeks to create a diverse intellectual community, to foster healthy debate about the intersections of race and sexuality, and to provide unique opportunities for networking and professional development. In turn, such working relationships can better inform public policy, present and future scholarly agendas, and community needs.
