Seminar: What (not) to do: Young people, gender and sexuality, 3rd March, Sheffield Hallam University

 What (not) to do: Young people, gender and sexuality Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University: Sexgen seminar

 1.30 – 4.45pm, Tuesday 3rd March 2015

Room 7331, Stoddart building, Sheffield Hallam University City Campus

Portrayals and expectations of young people’s gendered and sexual selves are shrouded in contradiction. Young people are both exposed to ‘sexualised’ images of their peers whilst being scorned for their perceived sexual ‘deviance’. The complexities of young people’s gender and sexual identities also intersect along axes of class, race, disability, geographical location, and so on. This seminar will explore some of the complex entanglements surrounding young people, gender and sexuality, inside and outside of formal education settings. Speakers will draw on the experiences of young people involved in research to discuss how gender, sexuality, sex, sexual knowledge(s) and sexual pleasure function in the lives of young women, men, LGBT and disabled young people (categories which, of course, are not mutually exclusive) to discuss, what (not) to do: young people, gender and sexuality.

Nikki Edwards, University of Leeds “But pleasure, like how do you gain pleasure?” Young women’s experiences of gaining informal sexual knowledge through a feminist lens Mark Casey, Newcastle University A young gay men’s group in Middlesbrough: Past, present and futures  Eleanor Formby, Sheffield Hallam University The limitations of an anti-bullying perspective to understanding young LGBT people’s experiences within and beyond school  Jenny Slater, Sheffield Hallam University and Kirsty Liddiard, University of Sheffield “Like, pissing yourself is not a particularly attractive quality, let’s be honest”: Learning to contain through youth, adulthood, disability and sexuality  Michael Keenan, Nottingham Trent University Experiencing inclusive exclusion: LGBTQ student experiences in English universities  Julia Hirst, Sheffield Hallam University ‘Putting it about…’ and the ‘unselfish lover’: Who to be? How to act? How to be perceived? Contrasts in findings from a pilot survey on men, masculinities, sex and pleasure

Places are free, but limited. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite: http://whatnottodo.eventbrite.co.uk.

The building is wheelchair accessible, and there is accessible parking available on request. For further enquires, including access enquiries, please contact: e.formby@shu.ac.uk or j.slater@shu.ac.uk.

Sexgen is a collaborative interdisciplinary network bringing together gender and sexuality based research centres around the North of England. We aim to bring academic research, writing and thinking on gender and sexuality into conversation with the ideas, cultural expressions and knowledges of community groups, cultural sites and activist organisations. The series organisers are: Sally Hines, Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, University of Leeds: s.hines@leeds.ac.uk; Surya Monro and Jo Woodiwiss, Centre for Research in Social Sciences, University of Huddersfield: s.monro@hud.ac.uk; j.woodiwiss@hud.ac.uk. The other Universities belonging to the Network are Durham, Hull, Lancaster, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam, Sunderland and York. See: http://sexgennorthernnetwork.wordpress.com.

Postcolonial Studies Association Convention (7th–9th Sept. 2015: University of Leicester, UK)

The first Postcolonial Studies Association Convention aims to be as interdisciplinary as possible – we wondered if any of our Disability Studies friends were interested in attending…

Postcolonial Studies Association Convention at the University of Leicester on 7th–9th September 2015

The first PSA convention will be held at the University of Leicester (UK), from 7 to 9 September 2015. Contributions from academics and postgraduates investigating any area of postcolonialism from any disciplinary, cross- or interdisciplinary perspective are warmly invited.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Professor Paul Gilroy (King’s College London)
• Professor John McLeod (University of Leeds)
• (Other keynotes to be confirmed)

The 2015 PSA Convention Special Topic is Diasporas

Proposals for panels and papers on the theme of diasporas will be particularly welcome. Movement —be it of culture, capital or the human movement involved in colonialism, slavery, indentured labour, or postcolonial migration to former colonial metropoli— has always been central to postcolonial studies.

Diaspora has been one of the key concepts of postcolonial studies within this context of individual and collective journeys. Within contemporary analysis, diasporas have tended to be explored in terms of ethnicity, race, nationality, and even religion. However, diaspora has sometimes been accused of perpetuating histories of colonial inequality by failing to differentiate between precarious migration motivated by exploitation and the more economically privileged transnational movements of the global bourgeoisie. The study of human movement during colonial and postcolonial times has taken a number of shapes across the humanities and social sciences through the study of diaspora, migration, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and globalisation. It is this theme of movement that the conference special topic will address. What social, historical and linguistic configurations does the study of diasporas privilege? Which ones does it ignore? How has diaspora come to include different motivations of migration beyond the more familiar ones of ethnic discrimination and economic hardship? How has the diasporic experience been represented and studied?

The convention will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing & its ongoing partnership with the PSA.

Format: Individual 20-min. academic papers, panels, performances or poster presentations.

Please send abstracts of individual presentations (250 words) or panels of 3 (500 words) with a brief biographical note of participants (2-3 sentences) to psa2015convention@gmail.com

Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2015. Decisions communicated by the end of March 2015.

Reminder: Next DRF Seminar – Weds. 10th December 2014: 10am-12pm

Details for the next DRF seminar are below. All welcome. And if you’d like to present at an upcoming seminar, please do let us know – available slots can be seen here.

Wednesday 10^th December, 10am-12pm, Room 100009 (Arundel Building, Sheffield Hallam University)

Slot 1: Joanna Baker-Rogers: Asperger Syndrome – experiencing the phenomenon of friendship (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Abstract: As the mother of a son with the label of Asperger Syndrome (AS), I have observed my son enjoying friendships with peers both on the autism spectrum and non-disabled. These observations would appear to challenge the diagnostic view that persons with AS do not enjoy friendship. Instead they prefer solitary activities and being alone. This conceptualisation of the autism spectrum embodies the medical model of disability and in-particular the Triad of Impairments (Wing 1995). The literature is dominated by understandings of friendship of non-disabled people (O’Dell, Bertildotter Rosqvist and Brownlow (2013). There is little consideration of potential autistic friendships from a social model of disability perspective. Instead the focus is on the failure of persons with AS to aspire to and maintain friendships with the aim of improving themselves to experience friendship from a non-disabled perspective.  I have come to question whether concepts of friendship are being imposed upon persons with AS that have little meaning for them, are disabling and embody the concepts of normalcy (Abberley 1991) and ableism (Campbell 2012).

The medical model of disability view of persons with AS not being interested in friendship needs to be problematised. This presentation of my research critiques these misconceptions that have emerged as a result of social barriers in society. My research aims to capture the different and valid lived experience of friendship for persons with AS that challenges the conceptualisation of the autism spectrum as a tragedy for the individual and their family.

Slot 2: Chris Hill: Special School Sporting Experiences: Listening to Student Researchers Labelled with Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Abstract: TBC.