The Department of Cultural & Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong is happy to announce the Symposium on Gender/Queer Sexualities and Digital Activism taking place on 17 May 2016 from 4:00-9:00pm at Art & Culture Outreach (14/F, Foo Tak Building, 365-367 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai). The symposium is organized in affiliation with ISEA 2016 (International Symposium on Electronic Arts).
Website: https://vcscuhk.wordpress.com/isea-2016-symposium-on-genderqueer-sexualities-gender-activism/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/569804766535651/
The symposium Gender/Queer Sexualities and Digital Activism looks at emerging technologies of feminism and queer activism in and around digital media and social networks. It invites international and local scholars and activists to present critical views about the role of media and technological innovation in experiences with sexuality, gender and social activism.
Panel # 1 (4:00pm- 5:30pm) Sexually Explicit Imagery and Gender Politics in the Hong Kong Media Sphere
Speakers: Prof. Donna Chu, Prof. Yau Ching, Prof. Katrien Jacobs, Sonia Wong, Dr. Christopher Patterson (Moderator)
Through its development in urban entertainment and popular culture, sexually explicit media have become a wider range of industries to be viewed, interpreted and sexually enacted by performers and audiences. At the same time, the body image of commercial porn has been shifting away from its obsession with pure femininity or masculinity, as younger “edgier” models and matured-aged entrepreneurs have set up their businesses. The panel will show how pornography and the body image are adopted and reinvented by performers and audiences and debate feminist visions and “hateful” patriarchal responses within the expanding pornosphere.
Panel # 2 (6:15pm-7:45pm) Feminist Stirrings and Social Media in Mainland China
Speakers: Xiao Meili, Holly Hou, Featured Guest, Prof. Angela Wong (Moderator)
This panel looks into body politics and technologies of sexuality in mainland China as they are developed by netizen communities and specifically by young feminists and emerging queer movements. What are the technologies of resistance and survival such a body art, theater and online writing or photography? How do activists and artists navigate political sensitivities and the politics of representation?
Panel # 3 (8:00pm-9:00pm) Ethnography of Gay Eroticism and Activism
Speakers: Francesco Macarone Palmieri a.k.a.WARBEAR, Prof. Travis Kong
This panel will focus on a socio-anthropological analysis of online gay sex culture while contemplating political perspectives on contemporary pornography versus a subversive queer body. Francesco Palmieri’s talk will explore Bears as gay male subculture and on-line gender performance through contextualizing definitions of new masculinities.
Refreshments will be provided.
This is event is free of charge. To register, please visit: http://goo.gl/forms/DZUwLEp2qW.
For more information about ACO, please visit: http://www.aco.hk/.
For more information on ISEA, please visit: http://www.isea2016.info.