Boston College professor Charles Morris to lead Queer Memory: An Afternoon Symposium on March 26

Syracuse University will host Queer Memory: An Afternoon Symposium, with speaker Charles E. Morris III of Boston College addressing “Meditations on the Prospects and Perils of Queer Memory” on Friday, March 26, at 12:30 p.m. in room 500 of the Hall of Languages. At 2:30 p.m., a roundtable discussion on the lecture will follow in Room 304 of the Tolley Humanities Building. At 3:30 p.m., a public reception will conclude the day in the Tolley Humanities Building Library.

The activities are free and open to the public. To R.S.V.P. for the afternoon (R.S.V.P.’s for the roundtable are appreciated but not required), contact K.J. Rawson at krawson@syr.edu. Rawson is organizing the event as a 2009-2010 SU Humanities Center Fellow.  

In his talk, Morris will lament the ongoing diminishment of will and wherewithal regarding the deep history of queer life, and he will explore the possibilities and limitations of queer(ed) public memory in the United States.

Morris is an associate professor in the Communication Department at Boston College. He is editor of “Queering Public Address” (University of South Carolina Press, 2007), co-editor of “Readings on the Rhetoric of Social Protest” (Strata, 2001/2006) and editor of the forthcoming “Remembering the AIDS Quilt.” He is currently writing a book on Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality and developing, with Jason Edward Black, a multi-work project on Harvey Milk, the first component of which is an anthology of Milk’s speeches and writings.

Contributors to the roundtable discussion will include Rawson and SU faculty members Erin Rand, assistant professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts‘ Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, and Laurie Marhoefer, assistant professor of history in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

Rawson, a composition and cultural rhetoric doctoral candidate in The College of Arts and Sciences, was one of two doctoral students awarded a 2009-10 Syracuse University Humanities Center Dissertation/Thesis Fellowship. He is working on a dissertation project, “Archiving Transgender,” which examines how the archival collection and use of transgender materials function rhetorically. Dissertations selected for the SU Humanities Center graduate fellowship show evidence of strong humanistic content and contribute to advancing one of the disciplines of study and/or creative work associated with the humanities. Fellows meet regularly during the year to discuss their projects, lead colloquia for graduate students and faculty around their dissertation research, and participate actively in other Humanities Center research activities and events.

Queer Memory: An Afternoon Symposium is sponsored by the Syracuse University Humanities Center, the LGBT Studies Program, the Writing Program and the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies.