[csaa-forum] CFP: (Un)Making Queer Worlds: Transformations in Asia-Pacific Queer Cultures Roundtable Workshop for Postgraduate and ECR

[Kylie Jarrett]

From: Gilbert Caluya [gilbert.caluya at arts.usyd.edu.au] 
(Un)Making Queer Worlds: Transformations in Asia-Pacific Queer Cultures
Roundtable Workshop for Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers
June 22-23, 2007 
Graduate Centre, University of Melbourne Parkville, Victoria, Australia 
Call for Papers 
Proposal deadline: April 27 2007 
Since 2000, intellectual interest in Asia-Pacific queer cultures has
surged. This surge responds partly to the new visibility of
non-normative sexual and gendered subjectivities in the Asia-Pacific and
its multiple diasporas. Along with the new thinking around Asian/Pacific
sexualities and genders come various contestations: in particular, the
fine distinction between understanding A/P sexual cultures as part of an
emerging ?queer globality?, and the tendency to subsume them under a
developmental model that places the ?West? as the vanguard of, or bad
example for, the ?rest?. Collaborations between queer studies,
post-colonial studies, and post-structuralist critiques have shed light
on the contemporaneity and historicity of each local queer culture in
the Asia-Pacific. But although such effort to carefully describe
geographical or local queer particularities is invaluable, locality does
not subsist in an insular manner, but is always relational. ?Glocal?
queer theory marries the specificity of locality with the context of
globality. Additionally, the economic processes of globalisation have
been accompanied by?indeed, in some cases actively promoted?mass
migration, warm body exports and brain drains, particularly from the
Asia-Pacific regions, that have temporarily and permanently dislocated
individuals and families from their homelands. In such instances the
ability to locate ?local sexualities? is brought to the fore just as it
proposes new difficulties for the analysis of sexuality along national,
regional lines, particularly in Australia. And if sexualities and
genders are ?glocal?, then so is capital. Understanding the nexus
between glocal capital and sexual subjectivities through their localised
and diasporic trajectories is, at bottom, about the political stakes of
queer survival in a neoliberal world.
(Un)Making Queer Worlds tackles these important questions directly by
bringing together scholars for a two-day roundtable workshop at the
University of Melbourne, Australia. The workshop is particularly
interested in proposals from postgraduates and Early Career Researchers
(ECRs).
Confirmed speaker: Associate Professor Peter A. Jackson will deliver a
keynote address on Friday June 22. Dr Jackson is the Deputy Convenor and
Senior Fellow, Division of Pacific and Asian History at the Australian
National University in Canberra. He is the author and editor of numerous
publications on genders and sexualities in Thailand and elsewhere,
including Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys: Male and Female
Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand (Haworth Press, New York, 1999)
and Multicultural Queer: Australian Narratives (Haworth Press, New York,
1999).
Submission of abstracts 
What we?re looking for: 
We seek participants investigating how various Asia-Pacific constituents
are (un)making trajectories of queer world and globality. 
We encourage papers that employ interdisciplinary approaches. We hope
that (Un)Making Queer Worlds will contribute to the ongoing elucidation
of constantly evolving Asia-Pacific queer cultures and their global
articulations.
Workshop Format: 
Featured participants will be asked to circulate their papers a week in
advance of the workshop. Participants will be allocated a one-hour
session to present a paper (20-30 minutes) and engage in discussion. 
As this is a postgraduate and ECR event, registration is free of charge.

Please submit abstracts of 450-500 words to
unmaking-worlds at unimelb.edu.au by April 27 2007. Keep in mind that
papers presented will be circulated before the workshop. Circulated
papers should be no more than 6000 words in length.
Important dates: 
Proposals due: 27 April 2007 
Speakers confirmed: Monday May 7 
Deadline for papers to be submitted: Monday June 4 Papers circulated:
Monday June 11 
Workshop: Fri/Sat June 22-23 
For more info, to register or to submit a paper proposal, email
unmaking-worlds at unimelb.edu.au 
(Un)Making Queer Worlds is a project jointly initiated by the Cultural
Studies Program, School of Culture and Communication, University of
Melbourne, and the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University
of Sydney. We acknowledge the support of the Cultural Research Network
of the ARC and the School of Graduate Studies, University of Melbourne.

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