This course explores the ways in which objects and material culture embody personal narrative. Moving back and forth from ephemeral traces of events and experiences to the culturally invested luxury goods that create legacy to the objects that facilitate daily life, this class will use, as its primary references, examples that draw from queer and African American cultures to underscore the potential of objects to tell the stories that not only reflect majority traditions and experiences but those of the disenfranchised, the details of whose lives are often obscured. In addition to readings that will provide background for class discussion, student will be asked to play the roles of detectives, archeologists, and curators at various sites around New York City. Each student will also be asked to create an annotated material record that reveals the public and private lives of one individual. That record may consist of texts, objects or any variety of media chosen or designed by the student. This blogs serves as an archive for the work done in the context of this course and related materials that become relevant to this exploration.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Transgender liberation, class politics & anarchism



http://www.wsm.ie/c/transgender-liberation-class-anarchism

"Persecution of minorities tends to increase in economic downturns and 539 trans people were murdered in Europe between 2008 and 2010."



 This article makes an excellent point that I think is overlooked a lot of times.. True liberation of gender issues cannot be solved solely through revolution focused only on class. It will not automatically solve the gender issues without considering gender, sex, race, and sexuality.

Another interesting point made in this article is how the Trans community is somewhat reluctantly included by the rest of LGB community as it's written below:

"Recently, trans people have made huge progress in fighting f"or their liberation, and almost all major lesbian and gay organisations have become lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organisations. Trans people’s inclusion in those organisations has not been an easy battle though, despite the fact that transgender people (notably Sylvia Rivera) have been prominent in fighting for queer liberation, including in the Stonewall riots. One reason LGB organisations were reluctant to accept trans people was that they saw them as an obstacle to gaining respectability and becoming assimilated into mainstream capitalist society. Trans people are sometimes more visibly queer than lesbian and gay men, and in modern gay male culture, especially, there is an emphasis on gaining acceptance from straight people by being as traditionally masculine as possible."




- Juwon










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