SU Madrid to host ‘Transnationalizing LGBT Studies’ conference in summer 2011

Jill Ennis
(315) 443-8382

The SU Madrid Center will be host for a weeklong conference and series of workshops with Syracuse University’s LGBT Studies Program in summer 2011. The conference will be a capstone of “Transnationalizing LGBT Studies,” one of 19 projects to receive funding through the Chancellor’s Leadership Projects initiative. The award will allow the LGBT Studies Program and Minor to extend their scholarship beyond national borders to engage questions of sexual and gender identities, theories, communities, diasporas and politics from global and transnational perspectives.

The conference in Madrid will bring together leading U.S. and European scholars, faculty and students to develop sustainable LGBT research and pedagogy networks. In preparation for this conference, the LGBT Studies Program will host a yearlong speaker series, a faculty reading group and a regional conference/workshop in summer 2010 on the SU campus.

“As teachers and scholars, we are eager to enlarge the frame of analysis for doing LGBT/Queer scholarship and for designing LGBT/Queer courses both here and in an international setting such as SU Madrid that take seriously what it means when sexuality and gender travel across borders in exciting, uneven and complicated ways,” says Margaret Himley, co-director of the LGBT Studies Program and Minor. “For example, what happens when U.S. faculty and students encounter queer identities and politics in Spain, and rethink the mainstreaming of gay and lesbian identity as a consumer lifestyle in the U.S.? This is a mere sample of the exciting, challenging, necessary encounters across borders that we will be exploring on campus and in Madrid.”

In addition to attracting faculty from Spain and other European countries to expand the SU LGBT Studies Program’s capacity for leadership in the field, the project will further enhance the relationship between SU LGBT Studies and SU Madrid. “This is an exciting collaboration,” says center director Paul Moran. “We pledge our full support and commitment to this and future projects with the SU LGBT Studies Program.”

For more information, contact Margaret Himley at 443-4947 or mrhimley@syr.edu.

Syracuse University Abroad (SU Abroad) consistently ranks among the highest- quality international education programs in the United States. More than 2,000 students from both SU and higher education institutions across the country study abroad with SU every year.

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