III Queer Studies Easter Symposium

9 April  -  14 April, 2008

Mexico City

The first international academic conference ever with a pronounced focus on Queer Studies in Mexico was organised by Enkidu Magazine in June 2004 and had the title „Competing Diversities“. This conference had an overwhelming response both locally and internationally and brought together a very colourful crowd of scholars from all over the world, representing a wide range of disciplines. The discussions in the auditorium in Centro Medico Siglo XXI (A conference center by the Mexican Ministry of Health) consequently crossed disciplinary boundaries and stimulated and generated considerable fresh rethinking and reconsideration of many topics, in particular regarding the interaction between traditional gender identities and modern western identity constructions, which was the main focus of this first conference. In 2005, Enkidu Magazine organized its traditional Humanities conference in the UPN, the National Mexican University of Educational Sciences and dedicated a conference stream of 6 panel sessions to Queer Studies. The papers presented at this conference also displayed a wide range of innovative Queer Scholarship, in particular in studies representing interpretative approaches within the social sciences and humanities.

Both conferences reminded us that while Queer Studies has still no institutional presence in Mexico, and most of Latin America, and the subject is generally absent and invisible in universities in this part of the world, there is a growing academic interest in Queer Studies and several exiting dissertations and research projects are under development but usually in isolation from each other, and without any forum where these studies could be presented.

Encouraged by these experiences, Enkidu Magazine established the Annual Queer Studies Easter Symposium as a permanent forum for global exchange and dialogue between scholars as well as a professional meeting point for international networking within the field. The first Queer Studies Easter Symposium finally took place in April 2007 in Teatro Arlequin in Mexico City. The conference united 118 speakers from more than 30 countries. The program was organised in a large number of special thematic sessions and sub-conferences covering a highly diverse series of topics extending from, for example, a special session on „Sexual Diversities in the Islamic World" to "The History of GLBT Activism", "Sexual Diversities and Disabilities", "Traditional sexualities and western gender and sexual identity constructions" and "Ethnographic studies of eroticism & fetishism".

The multicultural and multilingual environment of the conference in 2007 stimulated considerable exiting and eye-opening discussions in particular about how colonialism, post-colonialism, nationalism, and globalisation have reshaped conceptions and perceptions of sex, gender, and sexuality in different societies and how Queer Studies as an interdisciplinary field of study can contribute to highly diverse and innovative readings and re-readings of literatures, cultures, and societies. The conference also raised the issue about interaction and networking between queer activism and queer scholarship and a stream of roundtable discussions on various topics throughout the conference where both activists and academics participated, focused on contemporary social and political issues in various societies and the past, present and future of the global LGBT/Q  Movements. 

The Second Queer Studies Symposium took place in Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico City in March, 2008. The conference had a special focus on Queerness and Otherness. The committee selected papers addressing related issues in one way or another, as well as narratives of identities and identity constructions from a wide range of different perspectives, in addition to papers focusing on representations and social constructions of sexual diversities through time and space. The conference also manifested itself as an important cultural and artistic gathering with several theater performances, book presentations, concerts and art exhibitions taking place around the conference.   

Two fascinating art exhibitions completed the first Symposium: The artists of the conference was the Lesbian art collective La Vaca Feliz (the happy cow) from Chile that organised the controversial exhibition LesBarbie which during the Symposium was shown both in Arlequin Theater and in the Discotheque/Bar DoceTreinta in Zona Rosa. Mexican anthropologist Antonio Marquet organised a fascinating and colourful photo-ethnographic exhibition in the theater during the conference Las Hermanas Vampiros (The Vampire Sisters).    

In the second Symposium, the conference artist was Christian Mieves originally from Germany, and currently at Newcastle University in England. He presented an exhibition of Oil paintings on ceramic tiles with the titel  "On the edge"  showcasing recent paintings, which deal, like much of his recent work, with boundary crossing and a working through of the idea of in-between spaces. This is the link to an exclusive Interview with Christian Mieves about his exhibition during the Second Queer Studies Symposium. 

The cultural and artistic around the conference program, also included a theater play by Juan Carlos Cuéllar Las 80 mejores amigas (The 80 Best Friends) and a concert Jungle Recital with Seth Montfort,  the artistic director of San Francisco Concerto Orchestra.

The third Queer Studies Symposium will take place in Mexico City in April, 2009. The conference continues the tradition established by the previous held events in this cycle which has developed into an annual academic tradition in Mexico City, bringing together scholars from all over the world to share and exchange their research, experiences and ideas in a truly multicultural, multilingual and interdisciplinary academic environment.

CHICS' academic conferences are characterized by traditional paper presentations in panel sessions with three speakers each, followed by lively exchange, dialogue and interaction between speakers and audience in many small groups, workshops and seminars rather than by formal plenary sessions. Our conferences provide a forum for diverse voices from all over the world, to come together and make connections across linguistic, cultural and academic barriers.

Focus for Queer Studies Easter Symposium 2009

Queer Border crossing: We invite the Global Community to interpret the conference focus broadly. Wide and diverse interpretations of the conference themes ranging from the predictable to the surprising are encouraged.

» Call for Papers (Deadline for Submission of paper proposals: 15 November, 2008

Conference Languages

The conference sessions are generally conducted in Castilian and English. Occasionally, the conference also has sessions conducted in German and French. Some sessions will be bilingual and conducted in both languages with interpreters. Other sessions will be conducted in one of the two conference languages, and the session moderator will give summaries of the paper in the other language. Many sessions are being conducted with interpreters for sign language (on request).

» Return to conference homepage

» For comments and questions please send an e-mail to info@enkidumagazine.com