There was a women’s symposium here at Purdue recently and it was super great. I saw lectures on same-sex marriage in India, rural transexuals manifesting identity through interaction with mass culture, BDSM and Abu Ghraib, transexuals pushing the categories of sex and gender, dirty sorority songs, and Michelle Malkin and security moms. I also met some great people from California, Duke, and elsewhere.
It was pleasant to hear Foucault and power mentioned so many times. It was also interesting to hear language being used that had recently been reinforced by some of my readings, like the notion of subject positions. Whenever you are in a situation like that I think it helps to ground terminology in your vocabulary, so it was very helpful for me.
Not everything that I heard was applicable to my own work, but sometimes it feels good just to think, and I think that I will continue to carry a lot of these interactions with me for a while on some level. Someone asked what I thought of the symposium and I referred to it as an oasis, in general, but more specifically, here at Purdue. It was nice to have my intellectual fix met if only for one weekend. Now excuse me as I try and face the rest of this year…
Why didn’t I hear about this?
I mentioned it to you in my email as part of the reason I couldn’t go to the Feminism and Hip Hop conference…