Featured – We Who Feel Differently: A Symposium – Fri, May 4 – 5, 2012 (NYC)

We Who Feel Differently: A Symposium
New Museum
Friday May 4, 4–8 p.m.
Saturday May 5, 12–3:45 p.m.

Hagekos: Esben Esther i det grønne hjemme i Grimstad. Foto: SIGURD FANDANGO

“We Who Feel Differently: A Symposium” asks both what is at stake and what is made possible by embracing difference as a queer strategy within contemporary art, politics, and society. The two-day symposium was conceived by performance artist and scholar Raegan Truax and artist Carlos Motta, and will be moderated by Ann Pellegrini, Director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University.

“We Who Feel Differently: A Symposium” begins Friday afternoon with a keynote lecture by Norwegian trans activist, sexologist, and professor, Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad. Pirelli Benestad’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion organized with a lens toward gender and specifically in conversation with trans and intersex experiences, histories, and movements. A performance by queer artist Malik Gaines will follow the Friday panel.

On Saturday, the keynote lecture will be given by José Esteban Muñoz, author of Cruising Utopia: The Politics and Performance of Queer Futurity (NYU Press, 2009) and Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (University of Minnesota Press, 1999). Muñoz’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion that will engage questions of queer memory, art, and politics. A moderated roundtable discussion between all of the symposium panelists, speakers, and attendees will conclude the event.

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

FRIDAY MAY 4, 4–8 p.m.

4:00 – Welcome – Raegan Truax, performance artist and scholar
4:15 – “We Who Feel Differently: The Project” – Carlos Motta, artist
4:35 – “We Who Feel Differently: The Symposium,” Opening Remarks – Ann Pellegrini
5:00 – Keynote Lecture – Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad, Trans activist, sexologist, and professor, University of Agder, Norway
5:45 – Panel: Genderfull Lives, Genderfull Politics
Reina Gossett, Community Organizer
Tiger Howard Devore, psychologist and certified sex therapist
Julian Carter, Associate Professor of Critical Studies, California College of the Arts
6:45 – Break
7:00 – Performance
Malik Gaines
7:45 – Closing Remarks – Ann Pellegrini and Raegan Truax
SATURDAY MAY 5, 12–3:45 p.m.

12:00 – Welcome and Opening Remarks – Carlos Motta & Raegan Truax
12:10 – Moderator Remarks – Ann Pellegrini
12:15 – Keynote Lecture – José Esteban Muñoz, Professor of Performance Studies, NYU
1:00 – Panel: Queering Difference: Memory, Art, and Politics
Heather Love, author of Feeling Backwards: Loss and the Politics of Queer History
Mathias Danbolt, editor of Trikster – Nordic Queer Journal
Emily Roysdon, artist
E. Patrick Johnson, Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies,
Northwestern University
2:30 – Moderated Roundtable – Symposium Presenters and Panelists
3:15 – Final Moderator Remarks – Ann Pellegrini
3:45 – Reception