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Conventional Conventions
Jun. 25th, 2008 12:27 amIt's amazing how much our perceptions are just a matter of arbitrary perspective.
Yesterday, I was telling my parents about the LGBT studies and Queer theory conference that went on at Uni (the eighth "The Other Sex" con at Tel-Aviv University) and was asked if everyone there was as strange as I.
They said it as a joke (or not, I try not to dwell), but I couldn't help but think about it in a more critical way.
Am I strange?
I mean, really?
And in any event, define "not strange", or "normal", or "normative" - none of those are synonymous.
So beyond that little venture into semantics land, I have to say that this year's conference was fun, as I actually knew some of the people speaking on the panels and understood the theory that was being discussed there. Last year, was my first Queer academic conference and there was a whole lot that I didn't understand, other than what I had actually experienced as a queer person.
Where was I?
Oh, yes, the "strangeness".
Walking down the street, in my day to day life, I wear my political identity on my sleeve; which not everyone gets, understandably so, I suppose. Most of the time I feel as though I somehow escape the scrutiny of the hegemony because I don't break any societal conventions in the way I present myself to the world (correct me if I'm wrong IRL people). But I'm aware of where I and the "mainstream" meet and conflict, that place where I know that I don't fit into the categories society assumes to subject me to.
And today, at this conference, it's always amazing to hear the theories that describe the reality in which we live and the people who, along with me, don't fit the *deep breath* Patriarchal-heterosexist-Ashkenazi (i.e. white)-Jewish-nationalistic hegemony.
There is always a problem of representation. There wasn't any panel (that I saw) that touched on Bisexual identity specifically, there wasn't a whole lot about Trans' issues and there was a lot of Judith Butler bashing, which seems to be a trend in current post-structural theory and philosophy - which I don't get, personally.
There was a whole lot of talk on Queer identity, which a lot of times is used as an umbrella term for LGBT, but as (the amazing) Amalia Ziv said this evening, Queer is also an adjective and a verb... but not everyone has an identity which is fluid and shifting and changing.
I consider myself and call myself queer in certain circles, but I know that my some members of my family don't understand what I mean by "queer", but "bisexual" - with the baggage that word carries, is something most people who aren't queer themselves and know queer culture - is easier to understand, because it holds within the binary mainstream society insists we live as either homo or hetero, being bi is a little skew from that, but there is the option of one way or the other - with Queer, the options, the categories, themselves are put into question.
And that's what I felt what the conference was about; mainly about literary texts and more theorizing than practicality... but hey, this is academia, sometimes theory is the praxis.
Yesterday, I was telling my parents about the LGBT studies and Queer theory conference that went on at Uni (the eighth "The Other Sex" con at Tel-Aviv University) and was asked if everyone there was as strange as I.
They said it as a joke (or not, I try not to dwell), but I couldn't help but think about it in a more critical way.
Am I strange?
I mean, really?
And in any event, define "not strange", or "normal", or "normative" - none of those are synonymous.
So beyond that little venture into semantics land, I have to say that this year's conference was fun, as I actually knew some of the people speaking on the panels and understood the theory that was being discussed there. Last year, was my first Queer academic conference and there was a whole lot that I didn't understand, other than what I had actually experienced as a queer person.
Where was I?
Oh, yes, the "strangeness".
Walking down the street, in my day to day life, I wear my political identity on my sleeve; which not everyone gets, understandably so, I suppose. Most of the time I feel as though I somehow escape the scrutiny of the hegemony because I don't break any societal conventions in the way I present myself to the world (correct me if I'm wrong IRL people). But I'm aware of where I and the "mainstream" meet and conflict, that place where I know that I don't fit into the categories society assumes to subject me to.
And today, at this conference, it's always amazing to hear the theories that describe the reality in which we live and the people who, along with me, don't fit the *deep breath* Patriarchal-heterosexist-Ashkenazi (i.e. white)-Jewish-nationalistic hegemony.
There is always a problem of representation. There wasn't any panel (that I saw) that touched on Bisexual identity specifically, there wasn't a whole lot about Trans' issues and there was a lot of Judith Butler bashing, which seems to be a trend in current post-structural theory and philosophy - which I don't get, personally.
There was a whole lot of talk on Queer identity, which a lot of times is used as an umbrella term for LGBT, but as (the amazing) Amalia Ziv said this evening, Queer is also an adjective and a verb... but not everyone has an identity which is fluid and shifting and changing.
I consider myself and call myself queer in certain circles, but I know that my some members of my family don't understand what I mean by "queer", but "bisexual" - with the baggage that word carries, is something most people who aren't queer themselves and know queer culture - is easier to understand, because it holds within the binary mainstream society insists we live as either homo or hetero, being bi is a little skew from that, but there is the option of one way or the other - with Queer, the options, the categories, themselves are put into question.
And that's what I felt what the conference was about; mainly about literary texts and more theorizing than practicality... but hey, this is academia, sometimes theory is the praxis.
