In Scholarly-Creative Community

ID: Dr Susan Potter giving a talk at Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology on MAHE-Bengaluru campus. The talk and seminar were part of the Just Futures Co-lab public programming series that remains open to students, recent graduates, faculty, and friends from and beyond the campus (October 28, 2023). 

At the Just Futures Co-lab, we were thrilled to welcome Dr Susan Potter from the University of Sydney for a daylong talk and seminar in October [1]. The talk titled, “‘Specks of things’: minor archives, queer historiography,” invited us to think anew the relationship between sexuality, historiography, and the archive in relation to “Traffic in Kisses,” a 7-minute video that Susan co-created with Kiki Loveday of Smith College [2]. By referencing early archival films digitized by the US Library of Congress and queer collage films from the 1990s, the video and its making raised for me the question of what it means to entwine a set of audio-visual sequences of kissing films as itself either unpacking the erotic sexual identity or positing how that category is always already assembled—and therefore, perhaps, always already queer in representation. Susan’s structuring of talk around keywords such as “Opacity,” “Ephemeral/ity,” “Remediation,” and “Process” was particularly insightful in this regard, modeling further a form of reciprocity with the Co-lab and its pedagogy. 

The afternoon seminar began with a conversation about each of the participant's works and the work of the lab at large. We introduced ourselves through self-elected keywords and entered a discussion involving scholarship, embodying those keywords. To refer to the full list of seminar participants, projects, and artifacts, please see the bottom of this section. For the concluding activity, however, Susan and I made a slight modification to our original plan (which was to produce an exquisite citations list based on French surrealist exquisite corpse game). In light of the discussions of the day, Susan recommended that we each draw out a set of nested connections between 1) our chosen keyword; 2) a block quote or reflection embodying that keyword; and 3) a bibliographic reference corresponding to that quote and keyword. That way, we would still fill the room with a shared citation list and reflect on what has emerged (see below).

Thank you for your brilliant talk and caring responses to the work of the Just Futures Co-lab, Susan [3]. Most importantly, thank you for being present and in community throughout the day despite having traveled across time zones just the day before. Generosity and kindness, including what Cate Denial has called a pedagogy of kindness, have a special place in this lab—and it was such a pleasure to host you at SMI and to continue to have you as a member of the lab. 

My heartfelt thanks also goes to all the colleagues, friends, and students who could attend the talk, participate in the seminar, and/or support the overall event planning and logistics: (SMI colleagues) Ramesh Kalkur, Arindam Das, Meghana Singh, Shradha Jain, Anwesha Das, Margaret Amaranth Medlin (Margie), Asmita Sarkar, Priya Joseph, Farhat Ara, Jyothsna Belliappa, Vasanthi Mariadass; (staff) Anand G, Anuradha Ramesh, Santhosh V, Sreenivasa MS, Benjamin Peter, Narayana Raju, Ghouse (non-SMI colleagues) T. Jayashree; (students) Navya Sanskrit, Sowmya Chandrasekara, Priti Dhongani, Ananya Vepa; (recent graduates) Gayatri Shanbhag; Shamanth Joshi.

Queer/Trans Relationality in the Moment: An Exquisite Citations List

+ Susan Potter 
Archive >> “the unpredictability and contingency of affective life trouble any systemic presumptions about identity and politics.” >> Ann Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

+ Priti Dhongani
Standardization >> “sexual identity categories—and the names that enter them into linguistic social life—are always reliant on the presence of an outside or an other without which the category cannot exist: in order for the category of lesbian to exist, everything that is not-lesbian must also exist. Categories are not mutually exclusive, but mutually contingent, a way of thinking about boundaries that challenges the assumptions of exclusivity that lie at the foundation of library classification and cataloging practice” (104) >> Emily Drabinsky, “Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction,” Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, Vol. 83, No. 2, pp. 94–111.

+ Margaret Amaranth Medlin
Visibility >> I found Susan’s, Gayatri’s, and Ananya’s diverse focus on claiming visibility through bodies interesting. On Saturday night in Sydney there was an event called cLUB bENT bACK uP, which revisited a regular celebration of queer culture that used to take place at the Performance Space in Sydney between 1995–1998. I offer this site and memory to the seminar. I think the lab’s ongoing research loudly claimed new knowledge and visibility. In my point of view, this writing on Mathew’s body “FUCK THE SHAME,” challenges a shame, which can be attributed to a dominant patriarchal Christian culture. >> Reference: https://performancespace.com.au/program/club-bent-back-up/ 

+ Kush Patel
Non-Fiction >> “I’ve found Twine to be the most suitable medium to write narrative non-fiction about my Iraqi-Palestinian heritage in Penalties, and my experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder and kink sexuality in reProgram. Penalties loops non-fictional aspects of microaggressions that I’ve faced regarding my race into a larger fictional narrative.” >> Soha Kareem, “Tying in Diversity in Twine Games,” Broken Pencil Blog (27 March 209) (Accessed 28 October 2023).

+ Gayatri Shanbhag
Community of Practice >> [chapter 11] Maria Avila’s lessons on community organizing and [chapter 13] “This then allows participants to come together to troubleshoot the experience with tech, learn together in community, and devote time to collectively comprehend the larger implications of using the tool or platform . . . [toward a] co-learning and co-design ethos . . .the workshop facilitator creates a foundational community of practice.” >> Kush Patel, Ashley Caranto Morford, Arun Jacob, “Chapter 11: Workshops in Anti-Colonial Digital Humanities: Towards Building Relationships with Critical University and Community Movements” (pp.117-127) and Elizabeth Grumbach, Spencer D.C. Keralis, “Chapter 13: A Design Justice Approach to Creating Equitable Workshops” (pp.147-161) in Digital Humanities Workshops: Lessons Learned (edited by Laura Estill and Jeniffer Guiliano). London: Routledge, UK (2023). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003301097 

+ Ananya Vepa
Witnessing >> I'm reflecting on Margie’s question: by opening up with the figure of a body, you gain something to tap into, even if you don’t have a reference point. Me, today, writing about why I made a self-portrait soft sculpture is to think about how to contrast body hyper-vigilance with witnessing, or think with Remi Yergeau when they say, “Autistic narrative persists. It persists in the face of discourses that would render us arhetorical and tragically inhuman. It persists across genre and mode, much of it ephemeral and embodied in form. Autistic people persist and insist in the narrativity of their tics, their stims, their echoed words and phrases, their relations with objects and environs. We persist in involuting, in politicizing the supposedly involuntary. We can’t help it, after all” (23-24).” >> Remi Yergeau, Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.

Seminar Participants

+ Ananya Vepa (he/him) - Keyword: Sensitivity // Research Areas: Gender Studies, Disability Studies, Social Linguistics, Creative Making
+ Gayatri Shanbhag (she/they) - Keyword: Binary // Research Areas: Gender Studies, History, Makerspace Pedagogy, Digital Storytelling
+ Kush Patel (they/he) - Keyword: Carework // Research Areas: Architectural History and Theory, Design Studies, Queer Theory and Gender Studies, Public Humanities, Digital Humanities, Critical Librarianship Practice
+ Priti Dhongani (she/her) - Keyword: Standardization // Research Areas: Environmental Awareness and Consciousness, Cognitive Psychology, Anthropology, Digital Humanities
+ Shamanth Joshi (he/they) - Keyword: Sensed // Research Areas: Speculative Design, Biographical Writing, Affective Areas, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Critical Game Studies
+ Susan Potter (she/her) - Keyword: Ephemeral // Research Areas: Queer and Trans Film/TV/Media, History of Sexuality, Feminist Film Theory, Melodrama, Silent Cinema, Documentary Theory and Practice

Reference Projects, Artifacts, and Syllabi 

Projects:
+ Interlude 2022 Zine (The Office of Anti-Inequity and Anti-Exclusive Excellence)
+ Interlude 2022 Letter of Leadership (The Office of Anti-Inequity and Anti-Exclusive Excellence)
+ Sew Many Ways to (Un)Make: Subverting the Gender Binary in Makerspace Apparel Design Pedagogy, Capstone Project and Film (Gayatri Shanbhag)
+ Technologies for Queer Database and Archival Constructions (Adrian Pappas, Kush Patel)
+ Just Futures Co-lab Reports 1, 2, 3, 4 (Kush Patel)

Artifacts:
+ Twine Narrative: Identity Games, Studio Project (Shamanth Joshi)
+ RPG Videogame: There’s Always Room To Be You, Capstone Project (Shamanth Joshi)
+ Woven Forms and Inquiries: Care Matters and Justice Dreams 2023 (Selections) (Kush Patel)
+ Postcards: Care Matters and Justice Dreams Iteration 1 (Kush Patel)
+ Studio Book: Care Matters and Justice Dreams 2022 (Kush Patel, Aditi Bhat, Gayatri Shanbhag, M. Nithya Kirti, Neeraja D)

Syllabi: 
+ Studio: Care Matters and Justice Dreams Iterations 2, 3 (Kush Patel)
+ Seminar: The Future of Human and Digital Iterations 1, 2 (Kush Patel)
+ Seminar: Gender and Technology (Kush Patel)
+ Workshop: Making as Critique (Kush Patel)
+ Project: Scaffolds, Interlude 2022 (Kush Patel, Neeraja D, Akshay Prakash)
+ Common Bibliographical References

Notes

[1] Dr Susan Potter is Chair of Film Studies in the School of Art, Communication and English at the University of Sydney, situated in Australia on the unceded lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. She was born in Aotearoa New Zealand, of English and Scottish settler heritage. She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and author. Prior to her academic career she worked as a researcher across diverse policy and law reform projects, from Māori land law to mental health. She is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre.
[2] Video link via Susan Potter. See also: Kiki Loveday and Susan Potter, "Commentary: Something Out of Nothing—Making Traffic in Kisses," Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 63, no. 1 (2022): 37-61. https://doi.org/10.1353/frm.2022.a875875 
[3] It was through researching labs and non-traditional scholarly spaces pursuing research on queer futures, feminist media, and technologies of care that Dr Susan Potter came across the Just Futures Co-lab’s website—and I couldn’t be more grateful for the communication and connections that have followed, and which we look forward to furthering into the new year.

Opportunities

+ Festival/Call for Participation: Gender Bender 2023, Bengaluru (December 8-10)
+ Call for Submissions (Journal): Feminist Theory SI: Intergenerational Feminisms (edited by Jennifer C. Nash and Samantha Pinto) (Deadline for Abstracts: December 8, 2023)
+ Call for Proposals: DH2024: Reinvention and Responsibility, ADHO, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, USA (Deadline: December 10, 2023)
+ Call for Submissions: DiGRA Conference 2024: Playgrounds, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, Workshop Proposals (Deadline: January 30, 2023)
+ Call for Applications: Just Tech Fellowship 2024 (Deadline: January 31, 2024)
+ Call for Participation: Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) 2024 at the University of Victoria, Victoria (Early Registration Deadline: April 1, 2024 / Regular Registration Deadline: June 1, 2024)

Next Moves

Felt Notes are monthly dispatches about the work of the Just Futures Co-lab, and the co-labouring worlds of research and teaching in art, design, and the digital humanities that it scaffolds, furthers, and amplifies. The letter writing translates the ever so negotiated nature of this space and the discourse and scholarship on equity and justice we produce through critical pedagogy; archives and databases; interactive digital storytelling; and inquiries into queer-feminist media technologies and infrastructures. 

This week, I received an email from Mailchimp stating that they will be sunsetting their TinyLetter service at the end of February 2024. I’m sad. While several alternatives have already pitched in to help folx migrate their archives and contacts to corresponding platforms, I am still thinking in what form might the sharing of Felt Notes with all of you continue into the next year. TinyLetter’s simplicity and intimate reach are what drew me to their service first in 2017 and then again four months ago in the context of this lab. Its potential to build a substantial subscriber base for free has been very helpful for this pilot—and among other details, I have loved seeing two things: 1) the red heart favicon each time I’ve opened a letter to write or read on my browser; and 2) your replies to my monthly postings.  

Thank you for constituting the letter’s precious readership. These growing connections have been encouraging and guiding. If you have thoughts or recommendations for the next iteration of Felt Notes, I would love to hear from you. As with all the dispatches so far, if there are any announcements you wish to make, exciting opportunities you wish to share, or topical ideas you would like to write about, please feel free to contact me. It would be wonderful to see many of you in the writing and co-writing of these posts as we move forward. For all related updates, including the next phase of Felt Notes, I will be in touch as well. 

Wishing You a Joyful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!

Kush Patel