Friday, October 16 8pm
At Buddies In Bad Times Theatre
12 Alexander Street, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1B4
Glad Day Bookshop presents the Book Launch for OmiSoore H. Dryden and Suzanne Lenon’s edited collection, Disrupting Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging. ( UBC Press)
Canada likes to present itself as a paragon of gay rights. This book contends that Canada’s acceptance of gay rights, while being beneficial to some, obscures and abets multiple forms of oppression to the detriment and exclusion of some queer and trans bodies.
As the title to this volume implies, Disrupting Queer Inclusion: Canadian Homonationalisms and the Politics of Belonging seeks to unsettle the belief that inclusion equals justice. The contributors draw from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives to detail how the fight for acceptance engenders complicity in a system that fortifies white supremacy, furthers settler colonialism, advances neoliberalism, and props up imperialist mythologies (such as the one that Canada is a safe haven). They do this by highlighting the uneven relationships produced by normative articulations of sexual citizenship in a wide range of contexts – in prisons, at Pride House, Pride marches, fetish fairs, and the feminist porn awards – as well as within the laws and regulations governing marriage, hate crimes, citizenship, blood donation, and refugee claims.
OmiSoore H. Dryden is assistant professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at Thorneloe University (at Laurentian University) in Sudbury, Ontario. She teaches in the areas of critical race theory, queer diaspora, and introductory and advanced queer and feminist theories. Her research examines the links between race, sexuality, gender, and community through the themes of blood – how it is donated, discursively constructed, and shared. OmiSoore explores how “gay blood,” “black/African blood,” and queer identifications intersect with (homo)nation making. Her work has appeared in Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal, Women and Environments International Magazine, and Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge.
Suzanne Lenon is an associate professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta. Her research interests lie at the intersections of critical-race feminisms and law, and gender and sexuality. Her work has appeared in Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture; Journal of Intercultural Studies; Canadian Journal of Women and the Law; darkmatter; and Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice. She is also the co-editor of a special issue of Canadian Journal of Law and Society on “Law and Decolonization.”
Contributors: Julian Awwad, Naomi de Szegheo-Lang, Alexa DeGagne, Sonny Dhoot, Marty Fink, Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, Kathryn Trevenen, Amar Wahab
Table of Contents:
Rinaldo Walcott
Foreword
Suzanne Lenon and OmiSoore Dryden
Introduction: Interventions, Iterations, and Interrogations That Disturb the (Homo)National
Julian Awwad
Queer Regulation and the Homonational Rhetoric of Canadian Exceptionalism
Amar Wahab
Unveiling Fetishnationalism: Bidding for Citizenship in Queer Times
Sonny Dhoot
Pink Games on Stolen Land: Pride House and (Un) Queer Reterritorializations
Naomi de Szegheo-Lang
Disruptive Desires: Reframing Sexual Space at the Feminist Porn Awards
Suzanne Lenon
Monogamy, Marriage, and the Making of Nation
Kathryn Trevenen and Alexa DeGagne
Homonationalism at the Border and in the Streets: Organizing Against Exclusion and Incorporation
OmiSoore H. Dryden
“A Queer Too Far”: Blackness, “Gay Blood,” and Transgressive Possibilities
Patrizia Gentile and Gary Kinsman
National Security and Homonationalism: the QuAIA Wars and the Making of the Neoliberal Queer
Marty Fink
Don’t Be A Stranger Now: Queer Exclusions, Decarceration,and HIV/AIDS
For more information see: https://www.facebook.com/events/1627614264122390/ or http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=299174891
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