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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>The
Centre for the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland will
hold the next in its public seminar series, “Issues in the History of Sexuality,”
on October 7, from 4-6 pm, in the CCCS seminar room on level 4 of the Forgan
Smith Tower.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Nikki
Sullivan (Macquarie University): “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas
do it”: Queer(ing) animal sex and the matter of the (non)human<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Abstract<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>In a recent article on what she
refers to as “trans animals” Myra Hird suggests that “nonhuman animals have,
for some time now, been overburdened with the task of making sense of human
social relations”, and that nowhere is this clearer than in accounts of “animal
sex”. Whilst I don’t entirely disagree with this claim, what bothers me is the
presupposition that something called “animal sex” simply exists, and that this
is then appropriated by humans in a sort of second-order move. What this claim
fails to recognise is that “animal sex” (whatever that might mean) is
materialised <i>as such</i>—it comes to matter—in and through perceptual
practices that are themselves shaped by the contexts in which they occur. Given
this, a critical interrogation of the shifting understandings of “animal sex”
that have gained currency over the last century or so could be said to tell us
less about animals per se, than about competing ways of seeing sex(uality),
gender, and the matter of the non/human. This paper, then, develops an analysis
of what I will refer to as the somatechnics of perception as it operates in
twentieth and twenty-first century accounts of “animal sex”. Whilst it engages
briefly with a range of historically specific accounts of and/or approaches to
“animal sex”, the paper will focus primarily on contemporary works which
situate themselves as part of what has come to be known as the new materialism.
In these works, queering animal sex consists less of demonstrating the
existence of, for example, “homosexual” animals and animal behaviours than in
seeing from a non-human animal perspective, from, from example, “a bacterial
perspective” (Hird). What, I ask, can this mean? What does seeing from the
perspective of an/other entail? And what are the constitutive effects of
presuming that it is possible – or even desirable – to do so?</span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>About
the Presenter<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Nikki
Sullivan is associate professor of Critical and Cultural Studies at Macquarie
University, where she is also the Director of the Somatechnics Centre. She
is the author of <i>A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory </i>and<i> Tattooed
Bodies: Subjectivity, Textuality, Ethics, Pleasure</i> as well as co-editor
(with Samantha Murray) of <i>Somatechnics: Queering the Technologisation of
Bodies</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=EN-US
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>For
further information, contact Elizabeth Stephens: <a
href="mailto:e.stephens@uq.edu.au">e.stephens@uq.edu.au</a></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'>Elizabeth Stephens<br>
ARC Research Fellow</span><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'>Deputy Director<br>
Centre for the History of European Discourses<br>
University of Queensland Australia 4072<br>
Phone: 61 7 3346 9493<br>
Fax: 61 7 3346 9495</span><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=FR style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'>Webpage: </span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'><a
href="https://exchange.uq.edu.au/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://uq.academia.edu/ElizabethStephens"
target="_blank"><span lang=FR>http://uq.academia.edu/ElizabethStephens</span></a></span><span
lang=FR style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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