The Social Justice and Equity Studies Program is pleased to provide a presentation/conversation with Dr. Anne Harris on “Queer Youth Drama”.
Date: November 4, 2014
Time: 5 to 6:15 pm
Location: TH – 141
Using collaborative performance ethnography in community-and school-based settings, sex education has the potential to challenge at-risk narratives for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) youth. This presentation problematizes the youth-led drama project Epic Queer to test the ‘queer’ potential of youth-driven initiatives at the school and community level, and to reject the singularity of victimized and ‘at-risk’ narratives so pervasive in sex education internationally about queer youth. By drawing on the It Gets Better Project as an example of widespread but narrowing social media texts encouraging normativity, deferred pleasure and a happiness narrative, this paper argues for the potential of performance-based arts engagement for re-expanding queer youth subjectivities.
