Category: Gender and Sexuality

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Colonial, Postcolonial and Transnational Culture Contemporary Culture, Text and History Gender and Sexuality

On dissent; or, learning how to say no

by Pavan Mano

PhD candidate Pavan Mano explores how the seeming reticence of Singapore’s biggest queer movement to openly challenge the status-quo is in fact its key organising strength.

Singapore can be a strange country in many ways. And one of those ways is how it projects an image of a modern, forward-looking metropolis whilst remaining home to a backward (albeit unenforced) law in the form of Section 377A – a legislative hangover from British coloniality – that criminalizes sex between men. Section 377A isn’t an anomaly in the Singaporean landscape – it’s merely the most visible symptom of the primacy of place that heterosexuality retains in the country. Which, amongst other things, means that there’s plenty of work for queer movements to do in terms of advocacy and activism. And one of these movements is Pink Dot.

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20th - 21st Centuries Aesthetics, Philosophy, Theory American Studies Culture, Text and History Gender and Sexuality Visual and Material Culture

Jerome Caja’s ‘Cosmetic Miracles’ and ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ Drag in 1990s San Francisco

Jerome Caja, The Last Hand Job (1993). Collection Anna van der Muelen.

To celebrate the launch of the new Queer@King’s goes to Church series, in collaboration with KCL Chaplaincy, Victoria Carroll reflects on the sacrilegious artwork and drag performance of Jerome Caja (pronounced Chi-a), an important figure in the queer arts scene that flourished in early 1990s San Francisco.

Jerome Caja, The Last Hand Job (1993). Collection Anna van der Muelen.
Continue reading “Jerome Caja’s ‘Cosmetic Miracles’ and ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ Drag in 1990s San Francisco”
Categories
20th - 21st Centuries American Studies Culture, Text and History Gender and Sexuality Visual and Material Culture

Queering the obscene: how the archives shaped my PhD

From books banned in Boston to films cut in Maryland: in the summer of 2019 PhD candidate Katie Arthur visited five archives in four US states to grapple with questions of queerness and obscenity in the censorship cases of author William S. Burroughs and filmmaker John Waters.

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20th - 21st Centuries Contemporary Gender and Sexuality Interviews

ParaPride: Queer@King’s first Activist-in-Residence

A happy photograph of Parapride's Daniel Lul with 4 Queer@King's members at the announcement of the Activist-in-Residence scheme

In early October, Queer@King’s announced their first ever Activist-in-Residence, Daniel Lul from ParaPride. In this interview, PhD student Katie Arthur speaks to ParaPride Co-Founder, Daniel Lul, and Queer@King’s Director, Sebastian Matzner, about the scheme and their work.

A happy photograph of Parapride's Daniel Lul with 4 Queer@King's members at the announcement of the Activist-in-Residence scheme

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Categories
Culture, Text and History Early Modern and Shakespeare Gender and Sexuality Life writing, Creative writing and Performance

Engendering the Stage in London

Shakespeare's Globe, London

by Hailey Bachrach and Dr Romola Nuttall, King’s College London

An Apology for Actors: Early Modern Playing Then and Now, King’s College London, Friday 10 May 2019

Research in Action: Engendering the Stage, Shakespeare’s Globe, Monday 13 May 2019.

“Engendering the Stage in the Age of Shakespeare and Beyond” brings together scholars, actors and theatre practitioners to analyse the performance of gender in early modern drama and investigate the effects of women’s performance on the skills, techniques and technologies of the performance of femininity in the drama of Shakespeare and his English and European contemporaries. In May, the project held two events in London at King’s and Shakespeare’s Globe.

The workshop at King’s considered children’s companies and female performers at court as well as professional, more typical, “actors”. The Research in Action event at Shakespeare’s Globe used scenes which include gendered expressions of rage for public performance and audience discussion.

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