Pura Lengua and QueerScapes

I got to meet the filmmakers Aurora Guerrero and Maritza Alvarez of Pura Lengua at the Queerscapes Conference. Thanks MaIM for the introduction! They rock.


I missed MaIM's presentation, because I'm a loser. (it was inthe morning and despite my best efforts, I'm not a morning person). However, I heard wonderful things about it from the other conference participants.

Jacqui Alexander gave a fabulous presentation. One of the things she talked about was Queer Tourism, and the need for the "native"to stay put and the tourist to travel. She also called out for queer folk to move beyond Consuming as the mode (consuming knowledge, consuming cultures). I especially liked the way she pointed out that violence under modernity is not necessarily better than violence under traditional societies (i.e. it's still violence to the people whose bodies are under attack) I took notes because I could see implications for my own work, and now I have to go back and read Jonathan Goldberg's "Sodomy in the New World: Anthropologies Old and New" from Fear of a Queer Planet.

David Eng was also great, in his discussion of Lawrence v. Texas (and the deeply problematic racial politics involved), critiquing the constant analogies drawn to Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. The Board of Education. In the final part of his presentation he moved into a discussion of Monique Truong's novel The Book of Salt (which is, on its own, utterly brilliant). Again, it seemed to hook back to the discussion in my Coloring Queer class, on Lionel Cantu's article "Queer Tourism." Also back to Alexander's comments about consuming and then, of course, my brain went riffing off to Reza Abdoh's The Law of Remains (which is a spooky direction to go off in).

The plenary on New Directions in Queer Latino/a Studies rocked! And I'm not just saying that 'cause of my friends and loved ones.