It Was Curiosity

Transcription of “History of the Faeries”

itwascuriosity — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:28:21 +0000

From January 12-16th, the Philly Radical Faeries hosted the 2nd Annual Philly Faerie Gatherette. On January 15th 2012, as part of the event, Murray Edelman, Joey Cain, Agnes de Garron, and audience members discussed Radical Faerie History and issues surrounding the preservation of history and the divide between public and private. Peter “speck” Lien videotaped the event and posted it here. I, Husk (Michael Lecker), transcribed it. If you find any mistakes, please let me know (michaellecker at gmail dot com).

Here is the file: History of the Faeries (including- Murray Edelman, Joey Cain, and Agnes de Garron)

Faerie Futurity

itwascuriosity — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:51:34 +0000

This is the first presentation of my research on the Radical Faeries. This writing is based on my last four months of fieldwork. The sites I have visited so far are Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Sanctuaries in Minnesota and Oregon. I have had an amazing journey so far. I get to spend time practicing yoga, cooking, talking, and camping with some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I am indebted to the Faeries who have welcomed me into their fabulous lives and let me interview them. I sadly have not had time to review all of my material. I got back from Portland two days ago and this paper is due tomorrow morning— so it’s not my best piece of writing or a comprehensive sampling of sites. However, I have begun engaging with one idea that I think will become central to my project— queer genealogy is what I am currently calling it. I invite Radical Faeries to comment and critique this concept and the paper, either on this website or through sending me an email (mlecker at gmu dot edu). Take care, sistabrothers.

Love, Husk (formerly known as Quill).

This paper entitled Faerie Futurity will be presented at the Annual American Anthropological Association Meeting in Montreal at 8:00 AM on November 18, 2011.

Here is the paper.

Contemporary Theories of Sexuality Field

itwascuriosity — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:52:03 +0000

To become a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at George Mason University, one must complete two fields—literature reviews of areas of study. My fields were “Mass Culture and Urban Space” and “Contemporary Theories of Sexuality.” Attached below is the “Contemporary Theories of Sexuality” field, but before that is my introduction.

INTRODUCTION

In this overview of contemporary theories of sexuality, I trace sexuality as a public and political issue. The purpose is to understand how a supposedly private issue became a space to regulate bodies, but also a space for marginal subjects to contest norms. Theories I consider will discuss in numerous ways the political importance of history, social constructionism, essentialism, desire, bodies, identity, community, and normativity. I follow the field’s trajectory by examining four major movements: psychoanalysis, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, and queer theory, and their initial and continuing impact on how sexuality is theorized.

Contemporary Theories of Sexuality Field

Mass Culture and Urban Space Field

itwascuriosity — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:44:43 +0000

To become a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at George Mason University, one must complete two fields—literature reviews of areas of study. My fields were “Mass Culture and Urban Space” and “Contemporary Theories of Sexuality.” Attached below is the “Mass Culture and Urban Space” field, but before that is my introduction. The only disclaimer I have is that the section of the Frankfurt School needs work.

INTRODUCTION

Mass culture theories vary in their perspective and object choice; each has its own history and trajectory. Within this field I limit my scope to mass culture theorists engaging with the relationship between structures and subjects. Most theorists acknowledge both as pertinent but thoroughly examine only half of the dichotomy. Cultural theorists define subjects’ existence and their agency within capitalist produced structures in wildly different fashions depending on which half is studied. Within this discussion, I explore how theories regarding mass culture’s production and consumption have informed (and have themselves been informed by) discussions of the production and consumption of urban spaces. In this way, this field recognizes that the discussion of urban space has always played a significant and central role in larger discussions of mass culture, and has recently gained renewed attention within critical and cultural theory. The first half of the field thus focuses on the major arguments within the structure/subject dialogue in mass culture theories. The second half then narrows in on the influences, trajectory, and impact of geographers within cultural studies, particularly around questions of the production, appropriation, negotiation, and transformation of not only cultural commodities, but also urban spaces and places.

I begin with Karl Marx’s account of industrial capitalism’s rise and the subsequent alienating of subjects from themselves, their labor, and their culture. I move to Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Siegfried Kracauer, and Walter Benjamin of the Frankfurt School and their diverse accounts of the way institutions influence population in order to create the (passive?) masses and situate the public for the exploitation of their labor. Jürgen Habermas breaks away from this trajectory by showing how reason could but fails to combat the irrationality of the system described by the Frankfurt School. As a backlash against studying structures, the Birmingham School, including Stuart Hall, Dick Hebdige, and David Morley, discuss mass culture as a site of ideological struggle between producers and consumers. Their models consider the consumer as active. Their influence within the field sparked others, most notably John Fiske and Ien Ang, into theorizing and investigating the audience and how they negotiate meaning. From here I examine political economists, such as Mark Andrejevic and Sut Jhally, who discuss how the industry transfers audiences into a source of labor. Other political economists, such as Robert McChesney, Vincent Mosco, and Herbert Schiller argue that economic strategies of monopolization, global saturation, and exportation of products and structures of thinking adversely affect political thought and cultural production.

The theories referenced above can easily be, and often have been, applied to the study of urban space. Capitalists produce both mass culture and urban space to suit its purposes, leaving subjects to navigate, acculturate, or appropriate within the systems provided. Marx, Benjamin, and Kracauer were early commentators on capitalism’s impact on space, either altering it to enhance productivity and reduce turnover times, or for the promotion and celebration of consumption. David Harvey draws upon Marxism and critical theory to examine the historical geography of capitalism and the inequalities, which result in the production of space suited to the needs of capital. His work began a long trajectory of other theorists, such as Neil Smith, Sharon Zukin, and Don Mitchell, each of whom examine the production of space and its impact on subjects on a global, national, and local scale. The work of these geographers contributes to questions raised by political economists. Differing in focus, cultural geographers such as Doreen Massey and Peter Jackson draw on the work of Michel DeCerteau, the Birmingham School, and feminists to examine how subjects navigate and alter spaces that seek to exclude them.

Mass Culture and Urban Space Field

George Mason University’s Cultural Studies Conference CFP

itwascuriosity — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:52:13 +0000

Ecological Inequalities and Interventions: Contemporary Environmental Practices

The Cultural Studies Student Organizing Committee (SOC) of George Mason University invites paper proposals for our 5th annual Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference. The Conference will take place on Friday, September 23, 2011 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Call for Papers

“Since most of history’s giant trees have already been cut down, a new Ark will have to be constructed out of the materials that a desperate humanity finds at hand in insurgent communities, pirate technologies, bootlegged media, rebel science and forgotten utopias.”
(Mike Davis, “Who Will Build the Ark?”, New Left Review, January 2010)

The current and future impacts of ongoing, globalized environmental crises have animated scholars, activists, and professionals from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds and generated a burgeoning field of work that seeks to come to grips with the ecologies of the present as well as the possible ecologies of the future. This conference will provide a forum for emerging scholars and practitioners involved in cultural studies, environmental studies, the arts and humanities, public policy, political ecology and related fields to engage in conversations regarding contemporary and prospective environmental practices and politics.

We seek to engage in efforts to develop a deeper understanding of human interventions – in the forms of work, art, and politics – into the environment. We also wish to examine the ways in which concepts such as “nature” and “human practice” inform, articulate with and determine one another.  “Ecological Inequalities and Interventions: Contemporary Environmental Practices” will offer an appropriately interdisciplinary forum for work in this emerging area of inquiry.

Possible paper topics include:

·      Environmental activism: past, present, and future

·      Labor, Nature and Culture

·      Marxism and Ecology

·      Ecology as critique and self-critique

·      Creative expression and Ecology

·      Neoliberalism and Discourses of Sustainability

·      Ecology and the Politics of the Global South

·      Environmentalism and Citizenship

·      Green economies

·      Academic interventions and public policy

We welcome proposals for traditional academic paper presentations, as well as alternative formats such as panel discussions, workshops, and film screenings. In addition we hope to publish select conference papers in an edited volume or curated journal issue.

Abstracts of 300 words and a current CV should be sent to Jason Morris (jmorrisf AT masonlive DOT gmu DOT edu) by 15 May 2011. Please include the title, presenter’s name, institutional affiliation, contact information, A/V requests and any other special needs required. Abstracts should be sent as .doc, .rtf or PDF file attachments.

Grant Application

itwascuriosity — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 02:57:54 +0000

I have been searching for grants to fund my dissertation for a few weeks. It has been a frustrating experience. Surprise, surprise, not a whole lot of institutions want to fund the humanities. I was ecstatic when I stumbled upon the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center’s Blanton Owen Fund Award. I have never applied for a grant and since I discovered the opportunity two days before it was due, I did not have a lot of time to revise. Please feel free to provide feedback on the proposal; this is part of my dissertation proposal and also any recommendations on how to write a grant proposal, if I erred, are welcome.

The proposal is to fund a trip to IDA, a Radical Faerie commune in central Tennessee.

Oral History and Communal Living at IDA Proposal

CFP: Critical Junctures: America and Its Crisis

itwascuriosity — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:36:33 +0000

Chesapeake American Studies Association

CRITICAL JUNCTURES: America and its Crises

April 2nd, 2011

George Mason University

Fairfax, Virginia
The 2011 meeting of the Chesapeake area chapter of the American
Studies Association (CHASA) will be hosted by the Cultural Studies
doctoral program at George Mason University, Fairfax VA, Saturday
April 2nd, 2011.

Keynote speakers: TBA

CRITICAL JUNCTURES: America and its Crises

America is currently suffering through a severe economic recession,
accompanied by political and cultural turmoil of all kinds. But
pandemic crises of this sort are not rare in the history of the
republic. CHASA is now inviting proposals for papers and panels from
any disciplinary perspective that will address any of the cultural,
social or political-economic aspects of such critical moments in
America, contemporary or historical.

Please send 150 word individual paper proposals and a brief bio as MS
Word attachments to chasa@gmu.edu

Proposals for panels will be accepted and should be 1 page maximum. We
welcome a range of panel formats, but all panels should fit within a
75-minute time frame with at least 15 minutes dedicated to audience
discussion.

Graduate students are especially encouraged to attend and present
papers and a prize will be given to the best student paper given at
the conference.

The deadline for proposals is January 14th, 2011.

George Mason University is located in Fairfax Virginia, approximately
15 miles from downtown Washington DC. For details, please visit www.gmu.edu

American University 5th Annual GLBT Studies Colloquium

itwascuriosity — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:35:39 +0000

American University is hosting its 5th Annual GLBT Studies Colloquium. The colloquium is part of an effort to create connections and a sense of communities among GLBT studies and queer theorist scholars in the DC metropolitan area.

Please submit abstracts at this link.

From Rust

itwascuriosity — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:37:21 +0000

I am from Erie, PA. A city failing so hard it hurts to go back. I was born during its destruction (1980s) and saw my father continually laid-off and rehired by the same factory (General Electric). During the periods he did work, my father worked as many hours as possible, removing him from the family. I mainly remember him as the man who slept because he worked long hours. Slowly more and more people were laid-off and never rehired. Amazingly, my father survived the numerous rounds and always returned to the factory. It was not until last year that my father left the factory; he was forced to retire at the age of 57.

Erie is a rustbelt town on Lake Erie. The pollution from factories still kills the fish and makes for beautiful sunsets. Two types of people live there: those who have resigned themselves to staying and those dying to leave. People do not stay for the jobs (there are not many) or the lifestyle (fast food, scary bars, and box stores). They know the situation. They understand the economy sucks, that the town is going down hard, but what are they going to do. It’s a quiet, sad reservation that makes drinking and/or gambling a serious pastime.

I write all this because I am amazed at how well Philipp Meyer’s American Rust captures the feeling of Western Pennsylvania and the people who stay and the guilt of people who leave. The novel centers on an accidental murder, but this one death seems insignificant when compared to what US capitalism has done to these people. The closing of the factory left a shell of a town; the inhabitants know everything changed, but do not know how to react. They stay because it is familiar and how much worse can it get: a local claims, “There just isn’t that far you can fall.” The comfort of failure is all around, so they scrape out a living through any service industry job they can find. Hoping for better seems silly and others have it worse, or so they say to comfort themselves.

What I like about this book is that there is no optimism, well maybe some, but not a lot. Life in this town will never be the same and neither will the people. The sadness is palpable. Young women sit around discussing the losers they ended up with and placing all energy hopelessly hoping that their children will have a better life. Shame-filled fathers knowingly emotionally distant, sons with potential who cannot seem to get out, and mothers whose sons’ failures wrack them with guilt. Those who left feel as if they abandoned their families, while they made a life elsewhere in more hospitable places. Even when they leave, they carry the “backwardness” and sorrow of their town with them.

In the end, most flee, but not without a sacrifice. The escape is not glorious. It is mournful. A person with a broken spirit, burning down their trailer home is not cathartic, but sad desperation.

The Humanity of Hate

itwascuriosity — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:45:46 +0000

I watched this documentary and really enjoyed it, so I thought I would share.

Louis Theroux’s documentary The Most Hated Family in America provides insight into the daily lives of the Phelps family, creators of www.godhatesfags.com and picketers of almost every kind of event. (They seem to pick an enemy of the day.) Through the documentary you see their ridiculous campaigns and the ignorance produced from strong emotion (hate). Their lives depend on hating others; this obviously closes them off from understanding the other’s position and reinforces their opposition to them (obviously).

The interesting twist is that you also see the normality of their lives. The teenagers act like teens and if the video was edited you would not even know they were in a cult; the only difference is they have no interest in dating, the end of time is near and God needs soldiers, not a populated Earth, and they hate everyone who is not them. The seemingly normality of their lives made me question what role plays in typical US subject, is hate already so central to who we are that dedicating your life to it does not radically reshape your subjectivity?

Louis Theroux does an excellent job of documenting, but also intervening. He is not pretending to be a fly on the wall. Instead he attempts to get the family to think about their lives, what they do to others, and their beliefs. I actually prefer this style. It does not pretend to be objective; he’s biased and obviously does not agree with the family’s stance, but he wants to understand. This is why he prods and makes the family members uncomfortable. He wants to know why they hate. He makes it personal because they hate him. He has a baby and is not married. Everyone is worthy of hate in their eyes.