Queer Space Matters

June 13 + 16, 6-8pm ET

Stephanie Bonvissuto

This course delves into how navigations and negotiations of shared social space constitute normative and nonconforming genders and sexualities. What sociopolitical allowances and determinants inform decisions about which spaces to enter and avoid? How do such choices relationally construct identities? What mechanisms work towards validating our gendered and sexual desires? How does race and class determine the reach of our site-specific spatiality? To consider these questions, we will discuss concepts such as “duality of structure” (Giddens), social capital/habitus/field (Bourdieu), heterotopia (Foucault) and phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty). To better help locate these conversations in the public realm, we will examine two critical fields: the public restroom and group sex events. (Spoiler alert: some answers include access, signage, instrumentation.)

When you purchase your course seat please also submit this Application Form. Your enrollment is not reserved unless the Application Form has been received. Thank you!

Stephanie Bonvissuto is a PhD Candidate and Instructor in the Dept. of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University specializing in gender and sexual identity formations and the Sociology of Gender, Sexuality, and Space, respectively. Her dissertation is titled "Making Room for Queer Spatiality: Discursive Designs of All-Gender Spaces."

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