Program
“We Demand” History/Sex/Activism in Canada/«Nous demandons»: Histoire/Sexe/Activisme
(subject to change)
(Film Program: Pacific Cinémathèque, 1131 Howe Street)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
7:30pm: “We Demand… Moving Images”: An Illustrated Lecture by Tom Waugh
Tom Waugh, renowned film scholar and Concordia University Research Chair in Sexual Representation and Documentary, will open the “We Demand” Cinémathèque programming with an illustrated lecture reevaluating the cinematic heritage of the post-Omnibus/pre-AIDS era of film, video, and moving image production by Canadian LGBTQ activists. Showing excerpts from ten exemplary films and videos from Canada’s three moving-image production metropoles, Waugh will develop a subjective survey of the political cinematic landscape in the decade following “We Demand”—a contrapuntal historiography of activist film and video from 1970 to 1982.
Friday, August 26, 2011
8:45am-9:00am: WELCOME
9:00am-10:30am: PLENARY: Activism as History
Chair: Marc Stein (York)
Ron Dutton
barbara findlay
Janine Fuller
Amy Gottlieb
Gary Kinsman
10:30am-10:45am: BREAK
Danielle Cooper, Poster Presentation: Introducing the Sexual Representation Collection at the University of Toronto (continues through lunch)
10:45am-12:15pm
1.Roundtable: We Demand: Remembering as Resistant
Chair: Gareth Kirby (Xtra! West)
Brian Waite (founding member of Toronto Gay Action & the Body Politic)
Ed Jackson (Director, Program Development, CATIE; Early member, Toronto Gay Action & Body Politic Collective; Founding Member, Toronto Centre for Lesbian and Gay Studies)
Roedy Green (Founding member, Gay Alliance Towards Equality)
2.Politics and History of HIV/AIDS
Chair: Nick Mulé (York)
David Churchill, The Cultural Politics of HIV/AIDS in 1980s Toronto
John Paul Catungal, Making (a) Difference: Genealogies of Ethno-Specific Organizing in Toronto’s HIV/AIDS Sector
Richard McKay, “I don’t see him as any more typical of a gay man than Jack the Ripper was of the heterosexual”: Randy Shilts’s characterization of Gaétan Dugas
3. Trans Rights, Activism, and Representation
Chair: Ann Travers (Simon Fraser)
Bobby Noble, Beyond Bodies / After Borders: Female-to-Male Transsexual Masculinities and the Unruliness of Trans Embodiment
Kristin Ireland, Trans Activism and The Human Rights Commission in Canada
Anika Nicole Stafford, Everyday Exclusions: Vancouver Trans Inclusive Feminists and Maneuvering Anti-Violence Organizing
4. Archives, Museums, and Queer Collections
Chair: Lara Wilson (UVic-Archives)
Mel Hogan and Marie-Claire MacPhee, Taking the Archives down with us
Clare Robson, The Bridge Generation: demanding archives from the Queer Imaging & Riting Kollective for Elders (Quirk-e)
Mandy Koolen, Archiving the Personal, Inspiring the Political
Krista Jane Cooke, Representing Sexuality at the Canadian Museum of Civilization
12:15pm-1:30pm LUNCH (advance registration requested)
Canadian Queer Studies Association Founding Lunch Meeting
Sponsored by the Sexuality Studies Minor Program, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies, Carleton University
Chair: T.L. Cowan (Saskatchewan)
Minute-taker: Hélène Frolard-Dourlet
1:30-3:00pm
1.Collecting and Interpreting Gendered and Sexual Politics and Communities
Chair: Dan Irving (Carleton)
Aaron Devor, Saving our History: Building a Transgender Archive
Nicholas Matte, Professionalizing Transsexuals in the 1980s: Rupert Raj’s Media and Medical Activism
Andrea Zanin, “Your Cuntry Needs You”: The Politics of Early-1990s Canadian Dyke S/M Porn
Fabien Rose, "Other cases must certainly exist": some reflections on gender passing and history”
2. Regulations, Spaces and Histories
Chair: Isabelle Perrault (Simon Fraser)
Virginie Pineault, The First Known Quebec Homosexual Clubs, 1892-1908
Frances Reilly, Homosexuality and the Cold War Metaphor of Disease
Rosanne Sia, “White Girls Banned From Chinatown Cafes”: Regulating Cross-Racial Intimacies in Vancouver during the late 1930s
Rachel Warburton, Contact and Containment: Heteronormativity as the Limit of Marie de L’Incarnation’s Cultural Relativism
3. Lesbian Histories
Chair: Julie Podmore (John Abbott College)
Diana Heffernan, Mémoire de notre histoire: Memories of Lesbian History in Quebec
Tamara Lang, “Nobody had ever penetrated the secret world of lesbianism”: Locating the Canadian lesbian in magazine investigations of homosexuality, 1963-1969
Allison Burgess, The Triple Emergence of the Toronto Dyke March
4. Activism, Organizing and Communities
Chair: Ed Jackson (CATIE)
David Anderson, “Breaking down the walls”: Investigating, documenting and celebrating 40 years of gay liberation and student activism at the University of British Columbia
Jake Feldman, The Shirtless Debates: The Beginning of the End of Halifax Liberationist Activism from 1989-1995
Natalie Kouri-Towe, What’s Queer About Palestine Solidarity? Homonationalism, Apartheid, and Transnational Queer Activism
Melissa Autumn White, Approaching Queer(er) Futures
3:00-3:15 BREAK
3:15-5:00pm KEYNOTE
Facilitator: Elise Chenier (Simon Fraser)
Ann Cvetkovich, Queer Archives and their Institutions
5:00-6:30 RECEPTION
(Film Program: Pacific Cinémathèque, 1131 Howe Street)
Friday, August 26th
That was Then: Revisiting the Positive Images Debate
7:00pm: Fortune and Men’s Eyes (Harvey Hart, 1971)
9:00pm: By Design (Claude Jutra, 1981)
Long before the television series Oz, or the recent film The Kids Are Alright, two Canadian narrative films boldly waded into the treacherous representational waters of male sexual subcultures in prison and lesbian parenting. Either ignored or critically reviled in Canada at the time of their release, these two films nevertheless claimed notable champions (including, in the case of By Design, Pauline Kael), and in hindsight bear re-viewing and reassessment.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
9:00am-10:30am PLENARY: History as Activism
Chair: Ross Higgins (Concordia University)
Mary Louise Adams
Line Chamberland
Karen Dubinsky
Steven Maynard
Becki Ross
10:30am-10:45am BREAK
10:45am-12:15pm
1.Regional and Urban Spaces, Sexuality, Activism & the Queer West
Chair: David Churchill(Manitoba)
Lyle Dick, Western Canada’s Frontier Era—A Same Sex Golden Age?
Liz Millward, “No-straights” rules and private members’ clubs as contested territory for women
Valerie J Korinek, “We never thought of ourselves as anything but ordinary people”: Prairie lesbian identities, “communities” and activism, 1950-1980
2. Health, Rights and Community Activism
Chair: Robin Perelle (Xtra! West)
Star Deibert-Turner, The history of feminist health activism in 1970s Vancouver, BC
Nancy Nicol, “We Demand” & “Free Abortion on Demand”
Christabelle Sethna, Campus Hotbeds: Student Birth Control Activism and Oral Contraception
3. Violence and Queer Response
Chair: Becki Ross (UBC)
Amber Dean, Queering representations of murdered or missing women: The ethics of (mis)interpretation
Alexa Degagne, Strategies for Queer Resistance in Alberta: Evaluating Edmonton’s Community Response Project
Jason Crawford and Karen Herland, Sex Garage! Unspooling Stories, Rethinking Collectivities
Chris Samuel, Normalization as Symbolic Violence: Collective Identities and the Ethics of Resistance
12:15pm-1:30pm LUNCH – Complimentary with registration.
Chair: Patrizia Gentile (Carleton)
KEYNOTE: Jessica Yee
Indigenous Youth Lead the Way: Reclaiming Healthy Sexuality for the Next Seven Generations
1:30-3:00pm
1. Round Table: Indigenous Women and Feminism: Does it matter if we say sex or gender?
Chair: Valerie J Korinek (USask)
Cheryl Suzack
Jean Barman
2. Resistance and Activism in the 1970s
Chair: Steven Maynard (Queen’s)
Mathieu Brulé, “Seducing the Unions”: Organized Labour and Strategies for Gay Liberation, 1970-1982
Scott de Groot, In the Trenches of History: Gay Liberation and the Weapons of Historicism
Gary Kinsman, Queer Resistance in the 1970s: Subverting the Privatization of Queer Sexualities and National Security
Ross Higgins, From Androgyny to the Archives: Building the Queer Infosphere in Montreal
3. The Bodies of Liberation and Embodied Activism
Chair: Lara Campbell (Simon Fraser)
Michael Connors Jackman, “Spectral Desires and Political Reterritorializations: Ethnographic Notes on The Body Politic”
Kelly Phipps, “Lesbians and The Body Politic”
Virginia Solomon, “Expanded Sexuality, Expanded Politics: Conceptual Art in Vancouver and Toronto”
4. Queer Negotiations of Space and Intimacy
Chair: Cameron Duder (Independent Scholar)
Stacey J Bishop, Containing Sex Work in the “Livable City”: Neighbourhood Organizations and the Expulsion of Sex Workers from Vancouver’s West End, 1981-1985
Heather Stanley, “How is ‘this’ all going to work?”: Discourses of Married Sexuality and Heterosexual Embodiment
Byron Lee, Finding Citizenship in the Landscape: Creating a counterpublic in Vancouver’s Davie Village
Sheila Cavanagh, “Queering Bathrooms: Gender and the Sexual Politics of Excretion”
3:00-3:15pm BREAK
3:15-4:45pm
1. The Expulsion of On-StreetSex Workers from Vancouver’s Emergent “Gayborhood”, 1975-1985: A Cautionary Tale
Chair: Christabelle Sethna (U of Ottawa)
Becki Ross, No Sex in the City: The Legal and Moral Repression of On-Street Prostitution in Vancouver, 1975-1985
Jamie Lee Hamilton, The Golden Age of Prostitution: One Woman’s Personal Account of An Outdoor Brothel in Vancouver’s West End, 1975-1985
Rachael Sullivan, Tracing Lines of Horizontal Hostility: Sex Workers, Feminists, and Gay Activists Embattled in Vancouver’s West End, 1975-1985
2. Queer Activism and Social Movements
Chair: Clare Robson (Quirk-e)
Graham Willet, ASK: Vancouver, Canada, The Western Hemisphere, The World...
Nick Mulé, Transcending the Provincial: LGBT Liberationist Activism in Ontario – From CLGRO to Queer Ontario
Jen Marchbank and Sylvie Traphan, Demanding Youth, Claiming Space, Making History-Queer Youth in Surrey
Special panel: 3:15-6:00pm
Using Film and Video in the Construction of Lesbian and Gay Politics and Community in Canada 1971-1982
(Extended time slot: Duration of this panel is 150 minutes or 3:15 to 6:00pm)
Contributors: Thomas Waugh, Diane Heffernan, Sara Diamond, Michel Audy, Paul Wong, Nancy Nicol, Harry Sutherland
7:00pm BANQUET featuring local entertainers
(Film Program: Pacific Cinémathèque, 1131 Howe Street)
Saturday, August 27th
Sex Wars
7:00pm: Zero Patience (John Greyson, 1993)
Preceded by:
· Lettre à un amant (Canada, Marc Paradis, 1988, video, 10 mins)
· Steam Clean (Canada, Richard Fung, 1990, video, 3 mins)
· Water into Fire (Canada, Zachery Longboy, 1994, video, 10 mins)
9:20pm: Bubbles Galore (Cynthia Roberts, 1998)
Preceded by:
· We’re Talking Vulva (Canada, Shawna Dempsey/Lori Millan/Tracy Traeger, 1990, 16 mm, 5 mins)
· Drawing the Line (Canada, Lorna Boschman, 1992, video, 7 mins)
In the 1990s, AIDS and pornography emerged as flashpoints for the queer community in Canada. Film and video artists responded not by capitulating to shaming and negative stereotyping in the press and in parliament, but by unabashedly—and cheekily—celebrating queer sexuality in a series of works that were poetically erotic, politically complex, and (especially in the case of the two features programmed here) campily agitprop.
Sunday August 28, 2011
9:30am-11:00am
1. Queer Film and Media
Chair: Susan Stewart, Dean of Faculty of Culture + Community, Emily Carr University of Art & Design
Julianne Pidduck, Family as a Scene of lgbt Visibility in Recent Québec Cinema
Jasmine Rault and T.L. Cowan, Cabaret Commons: Digital Archives for feminist and queer artists and audiences
2. Institutionalizing Sexuality and Health Discourses
Chair: Natasha Barsotti (Xtra! West)
Liam Michaud O’Grady, Criminalizing risk: Living histories of HIV criminalization
Daniel Keith Hambly, “The Greatest of all the Vices”: Antimasturbation discourses in Canada, 1830-1914
Isabelle Perreault, Sexuality as an Academic Discipline: the Birth of the Department of Sexology at UQAM, 1965-1975
3. Queer Performances and Theatre
Chair: Richard Cavell (Simon Fraser)
Teresa Jewell, BASHing Gays: Activist Theatre and Stereotype Reappropriation in the Fight for Equal Rights in Canada
Kerri Mesner, Innovations in Sexual-Political Activism: Queer Theology and Theatre of the Oppressed
Jillian Deri, Polyamory or Polyagony? Jealousy in Open-Relationships
11:15am-12:30pm
Endnote and Delegate Forum:
This session aims to synthesize the activist-scholarship themes highlighted by the conference presenters. Future questions and debates on the relationship between community activism and knowledge production willbe examined.
Chair: Cameron Duder (Independent Scholar)
Marc Stein, Associate Professor, Department of History, York University
Raven Bowen, MA Candidate and Sex Worker Activist and Organizer
Others TBA
Chris Morrisey,Co-Founder, LEGIT: Canadian Immigration for Same-Sex Partners
(Film Program: Pacific Cinémathèque, 1131 Howe Street)
Sunday, August 28th
Queer Vancouver
7:00pm: Hookers on Davie (Janis Cole and Holly Dale, 1984)
Preceded by:
· Rex vs. Singh (Fung/Greyson/Kazimi, 2008)*
9:10pm: Little Sister’s vs. Big Brother (Aerlyn Weissman, 2002)
Preceded by:
· A Film for WG (Canada, Gwen Haworth, 2010, video, 5 mins
· The Love that Won’t Shut Up (Canada, Ivan Coyote and Veda Hille, 2007, video, 20 mins)