If you go down to uni today, you’d better dress up in drag for the LGBTIQ picnic
Tackling big ideas. Scott McKinnon, vice-chancellor’s postdoctoral research fellow, University of Wollongong, ABC News, yesterday:
RuPaul has created a (TV) show that joyfully reveals queer lives … Drag Race (on Stan) … offers welcome representation for every sissy kid … with no desire to act like a proper bloke … Drag Race hasn’t yet worked out what to do if the man in the dress reveals she has always been a woman; or is both male and female; or doesn’t have a gender at all … This article originally appeared on (the university-funded website) The Conversation.
More about McKinnon, The Conversation:
Scott McKinnon … (has) a particular interest in … historical geographies of sexuality and gender … (and) is vice-president of Sydney’s Pride History Group and of Oral History NSW.
Annamarie Jagose, dean of arts and social sciences, University of Sydney website, June 26:
In our current celebratory — and sometimes complacent — post-marriage-equality moment in Australia, it is more important than ever to remember that only 40 years ago an impromptu protest led to the first ever Mardi Gras event, putting the rights of … sexual minorities firmly on the political agenda. In partnership with … those folk … the university hosted a conference … to commemorate the event … It was a moving moment for me to open the conference … and join with my colleagues in … imagining future projects of erotic justice in contemporary Australia. The faculty’s Outside the Square season … (had a) sold-out session, #MeToo: Male Privilege on Notice.
Pride of Place conference, June 25-26, Sydney Uni website:
… the University of Sydney is establishing the 78ers Legacy Fund … (for) students interested in advancing gender, social, cultural and sexual equality, inclusion and diversity … It is with deep respect that we acknowledge that the campuses of the University of Sydney are located on the traditional lands of the … peoples of the Eora Nation … Indigenous knowledge informs our values, our learning, and our research … The experiences of indigenous LGBTIQ peoples are integral to our histories, and to our … LGBTIQ futures …
Pride of Place conference program:
Our University Culture … What we choose to commemorate signals what we value as an institution … Conference schedule … 12:00pm Activism and transnational intersections in Asian LGBTIQ+ cultures and communities … Panel: Professor Peter A. Jackson Australian National University, Expanding Queer and Transgender Autonomy in Post-coup Thailand. Panel: Hendri Yulius University of Sydney … How the arrival of SOGIE transforms Indonesian LGBTIQ+ activisms … Shawna Tang is lecturer at the gender and cultural studies department at the University of Sydney … she studies sexuality politics, LGBT ageing, non-normative families and intimacies, homophobia and sexuality justice in Asian global queer cities, using the critical paradigms of feminist, queer, postcolonial and Marxist theories. She is also interested in … academic subjectivities in neoliberal university settings
ABC RN, Big Ideas, June 27:
Many young people begin their working lives with a HELP debt. It’s a calculation made in the hope that a tertiary qualification will lead to a better job and a better quality of life. But what if you end up with a debt and no qualification? A quarter of students who start an undergraduate degree don’t finish. Why don’t they go the distance and what can universities do to improve retention?