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BISR Methods Lunch: Between the Sheets/In the Streets: Interdisciplinary Sexuality and Gender Studies Research

When:
Venue: Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street

No booking required

BISR Methods Lunch: Between the Sheets/In the Streets: Interdisciplinary Sexuality and Gender Studies Research

Speaker: Dr Tara Atluri, Visiting Fellow, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and GEDS, Birkbeck, University of London
Chair:
Dr Penny Vera-Sanso, Birkbeck, University of London

Free event open to all: Book your place

Writing in reference to the 'outing' of non-normative sexualities in Japan by Western researchers, M.J. McClelland discusses the gendered colonial authority that enables affluent European male writers to speak on behalf of feminized 'Eastern' bodies. McClelland reviews the work of queer theorists who often write about Japan's 'new' queer culture, one that is imagined to mimic the West. He suggests that this research is already informed by several author's Orientalist perceptions of Japan as sexually repressive and in need of benevolent Western translation in order for 'proper' sexualities to be articulated. There is an implicit understanding that desire does not exist if it is not translated into grammars of Western English secularism. (M.J. McClelland 'Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan's Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World', in Boer, I(ed), After Orientalism: Critical Engagements, Productive Looks, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2003, 105-22.)

This workshop will pose questions regarding the ideological frameworks that guide research pertaining to feminism, gender, and sexuality globally. We will also discuss possible ways to conduct ethical, politically informed transnational research.

Tara Atluri is a lecturer at the Ontario College of Art and Design University and is a Visiting Fellow at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and GEDS, Birkbeck, University of London (January March 2016). Her current research interests include sexualities and urban space in India and she has recently published Āzādī: Sexual Politics and Postcolonial Worlds (Demeter Press, 2016)

'Methods Lunch' is a series of lunchtime seminars, designed to interrupt your day with some methodological food for thought... Come along and hear about exciting new developments in social research methods and methodologies and bring your lunch!

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