Queer readings of books, novels, films, paintings, and performances give us our maps, our user’s manuals for finding pleasure in a world more often than not organized around that pleasure’s annihilation.
— Jennifer Doyle, ‘Queer Wallpaper’ (2006)
Jennifer Doyle suggests that queer readings of art and visual culture can be a source of pleasure and hope, or even provide the very means for existence. In this spirit, we hope to explore the possibilities that emerge from putting queer theory into conversation with art history. In what ways can queer visual culture and artistic practices offer more inclusive and diverse ways of living? What does queer visual culture have to teach us about navigating and inhabiting our spaces and environments differently? And, moving beyond Doyle’s suggestion, how do emotions such as sadness, anger, and discomfort figure in queer visual culture and research? Both ‘to talk’ and ‘together’ are the root terms brought together in the term ‘colloquium’, and this year’s Modern and Contemporary Colloquium at the Courtauld Institute of Art will be a space for postgraduates, early career art historians and artists to gather for a series of ‘queer conversations’ concerned with the pressing question of how queer academia might trouble art historical discourse.
Organised by Tilly Scantlebury (The Courtauld Institute of Art) and Andrew Cummings (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
Queer Conversations: Looking to Art History and Visual Culture
Modern & Contemporary Postgraduate Colloquium
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square, Friday 1st March 2019
09.30-10.00 – Registration
10.05-10.20 – Welcome
10.20-11.15 – First Conversation: Queer Bodies and their Representation
Maryanne Saunders (King’s College London, PhD)
The Meaning on the Surface: Trans Experience and Orthodox Judaism in the work of Tobaron Waxman
Dr Melissa Gustin (University of York, PhD)
She’s a Maneater, Ooo: The Depths of the Sea and Contemporary Culture
11.15-11.45 – Tea and coffee break
11.45-12.40 – Second Conversation: Identity in Public and in Private
Roberto Filippello (University of Edinburgh, PhD)
The Queer Affective Politics of the Fashion Image
Dr Edwin Coomasaru (Courtauld Institute of Art, PhD)
Hard Brexit Masculinity: Erections, Masturbation, and “Taking Back Control”’
12.40-13.55 – Lunch break
14.00-15.15 – Third Conversation: Queer Knowledge and its Power
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (University of Edinburgh, PhD)
Imagining the museum audio guide as a tool of queer spectatorship
Jessie McLaughlin (Tate and Goldsmiths, University of London, PhD)
Dead Hen is Dead When: queer, brown & femme in the art museum
Dr Ryann Donnelly (Goldsmiths, University of London, PhD)
Mis-Read or Why Mykki Blanco Never Vogued in Their Life: The Hazardous Collocation of Queer Icons
15.15-15.45 – Tea and coffee break
15.45-17.00 – Fourth Conversation: Thinking Queerly and Rethinking ‘Queer’
Sarah Kelleher (University College Cork, PhD)
Immoderate Encounters: Alice Maher’s ‘Keep’
Jacob Engelberg (King’s College London, PhD)
Critical Stakes: Bisexualising Cinema’s “Les(bi)an Vampires”
Flora Dunster (University of Sussex, PhD)
Queer/Lesbian/Feminist: Thinking Queer Art History Through the Sex Wars
17.00-17.10 – Closing remarks
17.10-18.00 – Drinks Reception