On (Queer) Opacities

A conversation series hosted by the GenderQueer Lab at the Institute for European Ethnology - Humboldt University of Berlin @HumboldtUni, first session on 24 May 2023, 16:30 with Gayatri Gopinath

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On (Queer) Opacities

A conversation series hosted by the GenderQueer Lab at the Institute for European Ethnology - Humboldt University of Berlin 

The GenderQueer Lab is hosting a conversation series on the right to opacity, a concept developed by the Caribbean author-theorist Édouard Glissant whose voice has gained wide recognition in several fields engaging with de-and-postcolonial frameworks. Glissant defines opacity as an alterity that is unquantifiable, a diversity that exceeds categories of identifiable difference. Opacity, therefore, exposes the limits of schemas of visibility, representation, and identity that prevent sufficient understanding of multiple perspectives of the world and its peoples (Blas, 2016). Glissant calls "rightful" the escape far from any legitimacy anchored silently or resolutely in possession and conquest (Glissant, 1990).

You are gladly invited to our scheduled events hosting Gayatri Gopinath on 24/5, Anna T. on 14/6 [online], and Omar Kasmani on 13/7. During the sessions, we will discuss queer entanglements with Glissant's concept, and address questions on researching, writing, and relating: how to negotiate the right to opacity through our research engagements? And how to write opacity in relation to queer beings and becomings? 
 
 
Gayatri Gopinath: 24/5/2023 - 16:30 [IfEE - Room 107a] 
Gayatri Gopinath is a professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, and the director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. She works at the intersection of transnational feminist and queer studies, postcolonial studies, and diaspora studies, and is the author of two monographs: Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures (Duke University Press, 2005), and Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2018). She has published numerous essays on gender, sexuality, and queer diasporic visual art and culture in anthologies and journals such as Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, GLQ, and Social Text, as well as in art publications such as PIX: A Journal of Contemporary Indian Photography, Tribe: Photography and New Media from the Arab World, and ArtReview Asia.

Anna T.: 14/6/2023 - 16:30 [online: https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/65039237555] 
Anna T. (PhD) is an islander. She works as an artist, educator, and curator in Vienna, Austria. She has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the University of Art and Design Linz, and the University of Vienna. Her artistic practice and scholarly work draw from poststructuralism, queer theory, decoloniality, peripherical knowledge, aesthetics, and affect. Since 2003 she has exhibited and participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions and new media festivals in Europe, the Americas, and Australia. She is the author of Opacity – Minority – Improvisation: An Exploration of the Closet Through Queer Slangs and Postcolonial Theory.

Omar Kasmani: 13/7/2023 - 16:30 [IfEE - Room 212]
Omar Kasmani is a post-doctoral research associate at CRC 1171 Affective Societies at Freie Universität, Berlin. His work pursues ideas of intimacy, post-migrant be/longing and queer temporalities. His current project explores the public interface of migrant religion in Berlin through critical notions of porosity and opacity. Based on his earlier research, Kasmani published his first monograph Queer Companions (Duke University Press, 2022) and with the same publisher, he is currently developing an edited volume entitled, Pak*stan Desires: Queer Futures Elsewhere. Omar has co-edited the book Muslim Matter (Revolver Publishing, 2016) and teaches on urban geographies, religion and queer theory with expertise in migration, Sufi life-worlds and contemporary South Asia.
 
On (Queer) Opacities is curated by Prof. Dr. Beate Binder and Imad Gebrael and will be held in English.
For information on accessibility please visit the institute's website and reach out in case of further inquiries: gebraeli[ at ]hu-berlin.de