Translating ‘gaytown’: the collision of global and local in bringing Australian queer play Bison to Belfast.

Sydney playwright Lachlan Philpott’s Bison (2000/2009) is immersed in a sweaty, summery Antipodean scene of bronzed and toned bodies. It is located in the flora and fauna of gum trees and biting ants. Yet, despite this, it could be argued that at its heart it is not a specifically Australian site, but an all-too translatable scene that seems to be played out in gay clubs, bars, chatrooms and saunas around the Western world: men repeating patterns, looking for sex or love; checking out bodies, craving perfection; avoiding, and occasionally seeking, disease. At least, that was my assumption when I decided to direct the play in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2009. Philpott came to Belfast to workshop the play with the actors and, as a group, we restructured the play and tried to find a way to ‘de-Australianise’ it without necessarily placing it in a new geographical place - Northern Ireland - through linguistic clues in the text. As Philpott put it: ‘Let’s not make this play about Belfast or Sydney or London or anywhere because it is not a fair reflection of these scenes. Maybe we should just identify the generic elements of this world and then make Bison a play that reflects gaytown – because the rituals are all the same in Western society’. The experience of doing the play in Belfast made clear, however, that ideas of a global gay identity/experience –though highly marketed – fail to account for the vastly different situations of embodied gay experience. And the Northern Irish gay experience, while it has imported the usual ‘generic’ tropes of gayness, sits within a specific cultural context in which the farsighted legislation on equality for gays (imposed by either London or the EU) vastly outstrips wider societal thinking. For many in Northern Ireland, erstwhile MP Iris Robinson’s comments about homosexuality being an ‘abomination’ were a reason to support her, rather than to reject her. For me, the comments were the catalyst to doing Bison in Belfast.

Queer Spaces, Sexual Violence and the Desire for Safety

Queer politics and spaces have historically been associated with ideals of sexual liberation. They are conceptualised as spaces where sex, and its intersections with intimacy, friendship and love can be explored outside of normative frameworks which value monogamous reproductive heterosexuality at the expense of other non-normative sexual expressions. In recent years, however, autonomous queer spaces such as the global Queeruption gatherings and other queer community spaces in Australia have become increasingly concerned with the presence and danger of sexual violence in queer communities. Almost without exception, this danger has been responded to through the creation of ‘safe(r) spaces’ policies, generally consisting of a set of guidelines and proscribed behaviours which individuals must agree to in order to participate in or attend the event or space. The guidelines themselves tend to privilege of sexual politics of affirmative verbal consent, insisting that such consent should be sought prior to any physical or sexual contact, inferring that a failure to do so is ethically unacceptable within. This chapter reflects on the attempts to construct queer communities as ‘safer spaces,’ arguing that the concepts of consent and safety are inadequate to develop a queer response to sexual violence. Such a response, it argues, must be based on the openness to possibilities and refusal of sexual restrictions and regulations that have always been central elements of queer theory and politics.

Lineamientos para la integración y funcionamiento de los Comités Académicos de los Colegios de la División de Estudios Profesionales

Documento aprobado por el Consejo Técnico en su sesión ordinaria del 21 de junio de 2002. Los estudios de licenciatura conforman el área fundamental de la actividad docente de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, no sólo por el número de estudiantes y profesores que dedicamos nuestros esfuerzos a ella, sino también por la diversidad de las trece carreras que se ofrecen en el sistema escolarizado y, sobre todo, porque constituye la etapa de formación humanística fundamental que habrá de desarrollarse posteriormente, ya sea en el campo profesional o en los estudios de posgrado. El fortalecimiento y mejoramiento de la formación en el nivel de licenciatura requería urgentemente una mayor participación e involucramiento de los profesores de cada uno de los Colegios para mejorar las actividades académicas, tanto curriculares como extracurriculares, y para fomentar la vida Colegiada. Para ello, resultó fundamental propiciar mecanismos y espacios de comunicación, organización y representación académicas.

Licenciatura en Bibliotecología y Estudios de la Información, Planes de estudio

Licenciatura en Bibliotecología y Estudios de la Información (PROGRAMAS DE ESTUDIO) OPTATIVAS LIBRES OPTATIVAS DE TEMAS SELECTOS DE BIBLIOTECOLOGÍA OPTATIVAS HUMANÍSTICAS ANEXO PROGRAMAS DE ESTUDIO LAS ASIGNATURAS OPTATIVAS ANEXO PROGRAMAS DE ESTUDIO DE LAS ASIGNATURAS OBLIGATORIAS.

Plan de estudios de la Licenciatura en Estudios Latinoamericanos (Fundamentación)

El presente documento constituye el resultado del trabajo emprendido por el Colegio de Estudios Latinoamericanos para modificar su Plan de Estudios. Esta modificación ha sido producto de varios años de intensa discusión entre profesores, entre alumnos y entre profesores y alumnos; las consideraciones tomadas en cuenta reflejan posturas académicas, teóricas y conceptuales de varias generaciones, a veces divergentes, pero en general coincidentes en el objetivo y el sentido que deben tener los Estudios Latinoamericanos.

Queer youth, Facebook and faith: Facebook methodologies and online identities

‘Making space for queer-identifying religious youth’ (2011–2013) is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded project, which seeks to shed light on youth cultures, queer community and religiosity. While non-heterosexuality is often associated with secularism, and some sources cast religion as automatically negative or harmful to the realisation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity (or ‘coming out’), we explore how queer Christian youth negotiate sexual–religious identities. There is a dearth of studies on queer religious youth, yet an emerging and continuing interest in the role of digital technologies for the identities of young people. Based on interviews with 38 LGBT, ‘religious’ young people, this article examines Facebook, as well as wider social networking sites and the online environment and communities. Engaging with the key concept of ‘online embodiment’, this article takes a closer analysis of embodiment, emotion and temporality to approach the role of Facebook in the lives of queer religious youth. Furthermore, it explores the methodological dilemmas evoked by the presence of Facebook in qualitative research with specific groups of young people.

Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London, c.1850 to the Present

Sex, Time and Place extensively widens the scope of what we might mean by 'queer London studies'. Incorporating multidisciplinary perspectives – including social history, cultural geography, visual culture, literary representation, ethnography and social studies – this collection asks new questions, widens debates and opens new subject terrain. Featuring essays from an international range of established scholars and emergent voices, the collection is a timely contribution to this growing field. Its essays cover topics such as activist and radical communities and groups, AIDS and the city, art and literature, digital archives and technology, drag and performativity, lesbian London, notions of bohemianism and deviancy, sex reform and research and queer Black history. Going further than the existing literature on Queer London which focuses principally on the experiences of white gay men in a limited time frame, Sex, Time and Place reflects the current state of this growing and important field of study. It will be of great value to scholars, students and general readers who have an interest in queer history, London studies, cultural geography, visual cultures and literary criticism.