MARCH 2021
Pass with Care
Wednesday, March 10th 4-5PM EST
Please email rdobson@mailbox.sc.edu for a link to this Zoom event
Cooper Lee Bombardier will join Dr. Ed Madden's WGST 298 to read from and discuss Pass with Care, a collection of memoir essays addressing the author's transition and experience as a trans man. Please read the first essay of the collection prior to the event. The first essay is available from Kenyon Review.
The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature
Thursday, March 11th 6-7PM EST
Please email rdobson@mailbox.sc.edu for a link to this Zoom event
Joseph Valente and Margot Gayle Backus will discuss their work The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature: Writing the Unspeakable, an examination of modern cultural responses to child sex abuse in Ireland. The event will take place in Dr. Ed Madden’s “Queer Times, Irish Times” and will focus on the chapter on the novel The Long Falling by Keith Ridgway.
2500 Random Things About Me Too
Wednesday, March 24th 4-5PM EST
Please email rdobson@mailbox.sc.edu for a link to this Zoom event
Matias Viegener will join Dr. Ed Madden's course "Queer Times, Queer Lives" to discuss his work. 2500 Random Things About Me Too is an experiment in the construction of identity in a Facebook- drenched world of self-manufacturing and short attention spans. Possibly the first book to have been composed entirely on Facebook, 2500 Random Things About Me Too is a text-cloud raining art, dogs, sex, death and fruit.
Stories of Struggle: The Clash over Civil Rights in South Carolina
Wednesday, March 26th 2-3PM EST
Please email rdobson@mailbox.sc.edu for a link to this Zoom event
Claudia Smith Brinson will join the Women's and Gender Studies Program to discuss Stories of Struggle: The Clash over Civil Rights in South Carolina. In the spring and summer of 1969 more than 400 black women working at the Medical College and Charleston County hospitals went on strike. Charleston became a destination not for tourists but for union and civil rights activists, state troopers, riot police, and the National Guard – 1,200 soldiers sent by Gov. Robert E. McNair Sr. – standing on armed personnel carriers, wearing gas masks, carrying rifles with fixed bayonets. Said Charleston leader Mary Moultrie, “You thought we’d just die out after a day or two of marching. You thought we’d say, ‘Sorry, boss,’ and put those handkerchiefs back on our heads.” That’s not what the women did.
Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry
Monday, March 29th 4-5PM EST
Please email rdobson@mailbox.sc.edu for a link to this Zoom event
TC Tolbert identifies as a trans and genderqueer feminist, collaborator, mover, and poet. And, s/he’s a human in love with humans doing human things. S/he is author of Gephyromania (Ahsahta Press 2014 and to be re-released in 2021 by Nightboat Books), five chapbooks, and co-editor of Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (Nightboat Books 2013). TC was recently awarded an Academy of American Poets’ Laureate Fellowship for his work with trans, non-binary, and queer folks as Tucson’s Poet Laureate. S/he spends his summers leading wilderness trips with Outward Bound. www.tctolbert.com
APRIL 2021
Bloodroot
Thursday, April 1st 6-7PM EST
Please email rdobson@mailbox.sc.edu for a link to this Zoom event
Annemarie Ní Churreáin will join Dr. Ed Madden's course "Queer Times, Irish Times" to discuss her debut collection of poetry Bloodroot, available from Doíre Press
Religion, Sexuality and Freedom
Friday, April 9th 2021 from 2:30-3:30PM EST
Please email rdobson@mailbox.sc.edu for a link to this Zoom event
In recent decades, prominent legal battles have resulted in a dramatic increase in gained civil rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, and queer-identified individuals in the U.S. Simultaneously, opponents have argued before courts that they should be exempt from recognizing LGBTQ rights based on the claim that their religious beliefs fundamentally oppose the acceptance of LGBTQ people. This presentation explores the evolution of cultural beliefs and case law when it comes to religious freedom and LGBTQ people in the United States. Kazyak and Burke describe findings from an ongoing research project that includes surveys and interviews of Americans’ beliefs alongside quantitative and qualitative analysis of opinions and summaries of federal court cases related to religious exemption and nondiscrimination laws.