As an extension to last year's Queer Caucus panel, "Re-Conditioning the "Queer": Moving-Image Theory and Culture in the Age of Global Transnationalism," the SCS Queer Caucus seeks papers for the upcoming SCS 2002 conference (Denver, 5/23/02-5/26/2002) that again critically engage "queer" in a global-media(ted) culture. Recent events, such as the protests against the WTO in Seattle and those against the G-8 in Genoa have highlighted the often brutally spectacular nature of resistance against the indiscriminate formation of global capital. It is worthwhile noting, however, that a specifically queer presence plays little or no role in such actions. While queer protests around AIDS in the 1980s were part of a fight against heteronormativity, homophobia, racism and sexism, "queerness" as an insurgent and integral part of counter-hegemonic movements seems to have largely dropped out of the global media picture. Instead, representations of gay lives on television (as in the American sitcom, "Will and Grace") stand in for the articulation of a queer politics. On a global scale, AIDS is no longer defined around glbtq identity but is now a worldwide epidemic whose economic, racial, and national contours are continually formed within the prescriptive regimes of transnational pharmaceutical companies.

Within the realm of queer media studies (film, television, news, or the internet) there has been, in recent years, a growing interest in global queerness, as evidenced in studies on queer diasporas, queer images in transnational cinema, and queer-themed television series. For the most part, however, the debates over such texts have centered around issues of translatability and recognition; the focus has been on the degree to which "queerness" and its concomitant issues of identity might or might not move across national boundaries (work on the success of the British sitcom "Queer as Folk" in America is one example). Related debates have focused on how the term "queer" might increasingly be co-opted in the media in order to identify a niche market of consumers.

The Queer Caucus of the SCS seeks to complicate this mode of inquiry and expand this set of conflictually interlocking issues by asking for papers that interrogate the concept of "queerness" within film and media studies. How has Euro-American glbt-queer politics, theory, and media production presumed a cultural authority over how "queerness" is negotiated in the global sphere? How is "queer," as engaged in Euro-American queer studies, film, television, and internet production still a useful term in the context of globalisation? How might theorising the "queer" within the ostensibly "global" serve to complicate both terms? Is the so-called "radical" queerness of Euro-American queer studies, film, television, and internet production another spin on cultural imperialism? In other words, how might "queer" be understood within different historical and cultural contexts? Is it possible, on the one hand, to retain the term in the context of Euro-American scholarship and industrial practices (experimental, independent, or Hollywood production)? On the other hand, how might "queer" be negotiated and used outside Euro-American contexts without resorting to calls for authenticity? Given the global saturation of these dominant modes of production, is it possible to not engage with the hegemonic use of "queer?"

This panel thus seeks to explore the complicated position/positioning of "queer" in and through media as it functions on a global scale. We solicit 250-300-word proposals for 20-minute papers, via e-mail. Please be sure to send your responses to BOTH David Gerstner AND Yasmin Nair

Deadline: September 10, 2001

Respondents must be members of SCS by the time of the conference.