November 12-14
Friday 1pm-5pm
Saturday 10am-5pm
Sunday 10am-4pm
The Realm of Possibility (RoP) is an interdisciplinary, international symposium addressing issues and phenomena connected to Gender and Queer Studies. After a successful launch in 2020 with a wonderfully diverse panel of speakers, the 2021 symposium will concentrate on the topic of masculinity. While contributions from sociology, psychology, etc. are welcome, the symposium’s focus is on cultural and artistic expressions of selfhood and zeitgeist that can be read through the lens of Gender and Queer Studies.
In a time in which the queer community as well as non-queer women carve out new spaces and ways to exist in their gender and sexuality, it is worth looking at masculinity. Social and cultural change affects the entirety of the human community, even if it is just in the way we position ourselves to that change. The patriarchy upholds a fantasy of masculinity as the ideal everyone should strive towards or cater to that few men and male-identifying people (want to) embody. In public and academic discussions of gender and queerness, masculinity is often discussed as that fantasy, a standard against everything is measured – which leads the discussion of the concept to remain static.
The symposium aims to open a realm of possibility for diverse ways of existing in this world, as well as explore subversive, or deconstructive, readings of canonical media, including novels, theatre, film and television, poetry, paintings, clothing, and other cultural objects. Such objects are powerful storytellers of humanity past and present and observing these objects through the theoretical lenses provided by Gender and Queer Studies gives us a glimpse at the cultural consciousness, norms and values that inform our understanding of gender, sexuality, and identity.
The programme and list of speakers can be found here.
Interested in participating? Please register here for free: https://www.eventbrite.de/e/the-realm-of-possibility-a-gender-and-queer-studies-symposium-tickets-178055467697?aff=ebdssbeac
