FACULTY OF ARTS
WOMEN’S & GENDER STUDIES
Panel Discussion: Postcoloniality, Assemblage and Queer Studies
In Memory of Audre Lorde: 1934-1992 and Jose Munoz: 1967-2013
Date: 4 August 2015
Time: 12.00-2.00
Venue: UWC
In recent years, queer studies has moved beyond an earlier fixation with the uniform identities of lgbti communities to
pursue questions including
How are heterosexuality and homosexuality constructed and performed in relation to changing socioeconomic and cultural processes?
How is sex deviancy constructed in relation to race, class, gender and neo-imperialism?
Why should attention to sexualities be integrated into interdisciplinary work on human subjectivities?
Why is attention to intersectionality, and, in more recent years, assemblage, pivotal to scholarly and activist
traditions of queer subjectivities and politics?
Speakers
Yvette Abrahams is currently a Research Associate in the Women’s and Gender Studies
Department. As a scholar-activist, she has researched, lobbied, published and taught extensively around black lesbian
politics and struggles in South Africa. Her more recent activist work and scholarship is pathbreaking in exploring
connections between environmental, sexual, gender and racial justice.
Bradley Rink is a human geographer currently teaching at UWC. He has researched and published extensively on
urban tourism and queer subjectivities and subcultures in the US and South Africa. His recent work focuses on urban
spaces, social subjectivities, neo-liberalism and class dynamics in the city of Cape Town
Melanie Judge is a well-known South African lesbian activist. The co-editor of To Have and To Hold: The Making of
Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa, and the author of numerous articles, web-based short pieces and book chapters on
South African LGBTIQ politics, she is currently completing her PhD in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at
UWC. She serves on the board of the Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action.
Desiree Lewis teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department at UWC. She has written widely on sexualities,
feminism and gender in South Africa, and has delivered keynote addresses on postcolonial queer subjectivities at
international conferences in cities including Berlin, Oldenburg, New York. Pretoria and Turku (Finland).
Mary Hames (Chair): has published widely on the status of lesbian politics vis-à-vis feminisms in South Africa. As
Director of UWC’s Gender Equity Unit and author of several widely-cited articles, chapters and papers on lgbti politics,
activism and organizations, she has combined her academic research with activist work as board chair of the black
lesbian organization, FEW and work with UWC lesbian and gay programme Loud Enuf connected to the Gender Equity
Unit. Delivered keynote address at X1X Lesbian Lives Conference, Dublin, Ireland. Contributed piece on LGTB activism
to Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality.