[acc-cca-l] DEADLINE EXTENDED AUG 1 -- CFP: Stonewall 50: The Future of Global Queer Liberation Art & Media (Toronto, Nov 2019)

Tue Jul 23 17:09:59 MDT 2019

**Please forward and distribute to your networks**

Dear colleagues,

The deadline for proposals for the Stonewall 50 symposium held in
conjunction with the Toronto Queer Film Festival at OCAD University in
Toronto this November has been extended to *Thursday, August 1. *CFP is
below. Please submit proposals through our Google form here:
https://forms.gle/Wu8r7XWJUncrfYPR9

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at
symposium at torontoqueerfilmfest.com

Sincerely,

Jonathan Petrychyn (He/Him)
PhD Candidate (ABD), Communication & Culture
York University and Ryerson University
jpetrychyn at gmail.com

Symposium Coordinator, Toronto Queer Film Festival
torontoqueerfilmfest.com

---

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Stonewall 50: The Future of Global Queer Liberation Art & Media

A symposium organized in conjunction with the Toronto Queer Film Festival

November 7 – 10

Proposal deadline: Tuesday, July 23. Submit proposals here
<https://forms.gle/Wu8r7XWJUncrfYPR9>. <https://forms.gle/Wu8r7XWJUncrfYPR9>
https://forms.gle/Wu8r7XWJUncrfYPR9

Confirmed plenary speakers: Jasbir Puar, with more TBA

On Turtle Island, two key moments in 1969 are often cited as formative
moments in the development of LGBTQ rights on the continent: the Stonewall
Riots in New York, and the federal Criminal Code amendment in Canada that
decriminalized certain privatized sexual acts, often articulated as the
decriminalization of homosexuality.

Because 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of these two moments, both the
colonial states of the United States and Canada have been enacting their
own commemorations that aim to fold these events into larger mythologies of
a benevolent state granting rights to a fledgling minority. The Canadian
Government has released a commemorative coin, World Pride is being held in
New York City this year, and across Turtle Island pride organizations, film
festivals, and other queer institutions ran largely by wealthy white cis
gay male settlers are toeing the party line and repeating the same story
about 2019 marking the 50th anniversary of the birth of the LGBTQ rights
movement in Canada and the United States.

We think this is bullshit.

Recent work by activists and scholars, particularly the Anti-69 collective,
have noted that the Criminal Code amendment did not, in fact, decriminalize
homosexuality; instead, it made it legal to engage in sodomy and buggery in
private, subsequently giving the state the political and judicial
justification to crack down on these acts as they occurred in public.
Likewise, trans sex workers like Miss Major continually remind us that the
Stonewall Riots marked a moment when a group made up of largely sex workers
and trans women of colour were tired of police raids on the bar and fought
back against the state. In the aftermath of the 1969 Criminal Code
Amendment and the Stonewall Riots, state violence against queers did not
decline, as our governments would like us to believe today -- in fact, it
only increased.

We think it is time that this history, its mythologizing, and its
whitewashing, needs to be reckoned with.

In conjunction with the Toronto Queer Film Festival, we are seeking
participants for a symposium on the theme of Stonewall 50 that aims to
challenge the white settler mythologies of an LGBTQ rights movement and
reassert the necessity of global queer liberation art and media practices in
our current political times.

As ever, TQFF’s mandate remains to decolonize queer and trans art and media
histories and practices. This symposium seeks projects that embody the
spirit of the legacy of the Stonewall riots against police violence and/or
center a commitment to decolonizing queer and trans liberation histories,
art, and media. We take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of
Stonewall to not only reflect on where we have been, but how we want to
imagine queer and trans liberation art and media for the next 50 years.

We are interested in contributions that think creatively about Stonewall,
about the idea of being “stonewalled” by the dominant cis white settler
queer institutions. To evoke Sara Ahmed: has Stonewall stonewalled us? Has
its centrality to our mythology and the whitewashing of its history
obscured the material radical roots of the queer liberation movement and
obscured the multiple ways queer movements have emerged around the globe?
How can we reclaim spaces and art lost to homonormativity? How do we
remember the legacy of Stonewall outside of “progress” narratives? Things
look very different now than they did a half-century ago, but what does
progress mean? Is it a straight line or a pendulum? If things get “better,”
do they get better for everyone?

We are interested in papers, workshops, roundtables, readings, performances
that critically engage and reckon with - through media and the arts - the
history of Stonewall as a brick-and-mortar institution, as a site of
origins, as an idea that structures queer cultural imaginaries. We are also
interested in proposals that envision the present and futures of queer and
trans resistance and liberation movements. Topics could include, but are
not limited to:

   -

   Decolonial and anti-colonial queer liberation media & art
   -

   Queer liberation art, media, and movements in the global south
   -

   DIY arts and criticism practices
   -

   Stonewall as a business and its historical trajectory from seedy queer
   hole in the wall to verifiable tourist attraction
   -

   AIDS/HIV, especially centered around current and historical
   intersectional care strategies
   -

   Disability activism and global queer liberation
   -

   “Queering” the acronyms, troubling the presumed solidarity between
   lesbian, gay, trans, intersex, ace, queer, etc communities
   -

   Queer research creation and/or arts-based approaches to research and
   activism
   -

   Academic and cultural boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS)

While papers, roundtables, workshops, and other typical academic conference
formats are welcomed, we especially encourage more creative formats
including but not limited to: arts-based research, poetry, performances,
music, readings, and artist talks. As a symposium organized with a film
festival, we are particularly interested in contributions that engage in
some way with queer and trans media and/or art practices.

As a grassroots organization embedded within our communities, the Toronto
Queer Film Festival encourages contributions from folks across our
community – not just academics embedded within universities, but also
independent scholars, activists, artists, community members, and other
people with lived experience that would provide valuable perspectives to
discussions on global queer liberation art and media.

Everyone is welcome to apply. All participants will be paid and we will be
offering a small travel bursary for those outside of southern Ontario.

Please submit the following information via our online form
<https://forms.gle/Wu8r7XWJUncrfYPR9> by Tuesday, July 23

   -

   Name
   -

   Institutional Affiliation (if applicable)
   -

   Presentation format (i.e. paper, roundtable, workshop, performance, etc)
   -

   Presentation title
   -

   250 word abstract
   -

   Email address you can be contacted at
   -

   A brief justification for your travel bursary application (if applicable)
   -

   Accessibility & dietary needs

Individual papers and presentations should be no more than 20 minutes.
Roundtables, workshops, panels, should be no more than 1 hour and 45
minutes, including opportunity for Q&A.

Participants will be notified of their acceptance by mid-August.

ABOUT THE TORONTO QUEER FILM FESTIVAL

TQFF is organized by an ad-hoc collective of artists and arts professionals
who came together in 2016 to launch the Toronto Queer Film Festival. We
began this project out of an urgent need to provide screen space in Toronto
for media by and about marginalized queer and trans people.

We have three primary mandates:

1) to exhibit queer independent and experimental film and video art;

2) to support the production of alternative queer film and video art
through community-based arts education and professional development; and

3) to foster community engagement with the arts by welcoming all attendees
to our accessible venues with “pay what you can” pricing for events, ASL
interpretation, and closed captioning of all programs.

TQFF distinguishes itself from other Toronto cultural events that serve the
LGBT community by focusing on experimental time-based media that challenges
and expands social, political, and artistic conventions. Our curatorial
mandate is to centre the programming of work by and about queer and trans
people of colour, Indigenous people, and people with disabilities, as well
as the work of local artists, low-income, DIY filmmakers, and emerging
artists.

You can read more about the TQFF on our website:
https://torontoqueerfilmfest.com/about/
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