Author Archives: froharddourlent

Admin meeting this Monday

Summer is coming up and we’re not sure what The Network is going to look like now that Winter Term is over! But we’re planning on talking about it very soon, aka next Monday, at our next admin meeting. How organized of us. 🙂

So if you’re interested in getting involved in The Network, if you have ideas that you’d like to share, or if you just want to learn more about how we work, what we do, etc., please join us! Everyone is very much welcome.

WHEN: Monday, May 16 at 4pm
WHERE: Room 315 in IK Barber Library.

(The room is a little complicated to find, make sure to arrive a little early!)

April First Friday

I’ve had the date, time and location for our next First Friday up for a while (see the column to the right!) so this is just a quick, friendly reminder that our April First Friday is coming up. We will be meeting at 6 as usual, but this time we’re heading to east Van and having drinks at Toby’s on Commercial Drive!

Upcoming Global LGBTQ event (Mar 7)

Thank you for making this month’s First Friday (and the admin meeting before that) another successful evening for The Network!

In the next few days, you will start to notice some changes on the website – our admin meeting on Friday was very productive and we’re going to be working to make some changes in the next little while. I will let you know all about it once a few key changes have been made; for now, I would like to at direct you to our new Feedback page.

First, I wanted to let you know about a queer-related event happening on Monday. Please read the message below and consider attending if you are interested.

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This is just an email reminder for the next Global LGBTQ meeting next month. We hope to cover and expand upon the ideas brought out of the “Does it get better?” forum last January and start planning activities and research initiatives in and around the UBC campus. Here are just some of the few topics we covered last meeting and hope to talk about in our next meeting:

1) Connecting global and local contexts and responses to homophobic and transphobic violence.
2) Connecting LGBTQ scholars and those who are interested in queer and lgbtq research and issues at UBC.
3) Planning future events on homonationalism, homophobic violence, discrimination within lgbtq communities and queer acts of resistance and healing.
4) Creating a research network at the Liu Institute for queer scholars and research.

The next meeting will be:

Monday, March 7th
10:00-13:00

Liu Institute, 3rd Floor Board room

Please share this to your friends and colleagues. The more the merrier!

https://blogs.ubc.ca/queergrads/feedback/

Location / time for March’s First Friday

For the upcoming First Friday (March 4), we will be meeting at The Fountainhead on Davie. (We’re having trouble thinking of other queer-friendly places that welcome big groups on Friday evenings, so if you have any ideas, please share them with us!)

Be there at 4:30pm for an ‘admin meeting’ if you’re interested in being part of helping out with this group, deciding what to do next, where we’re going, etc.

If you’d just like to get a drink and chat, the social portion of the evening will start at 6. Show up anytime between 6 and 8 and we’ll be there. This time we will even have a rainbow flag to help everyone find the group!

February’s First Friday will be a business meeting

The beginning of February is almost upon us and it seems that there is some collective interest in holding a “business meeting” as opposed to our usual “First Friday” social event.  Now that we have quite a few people who are eager to be a part of this network it seems like it’s a great time to have a meeting of minds and discuss things like:
– What do we want this network to look like going forward?
– What needs to queer grad students have and how can this network help to meet them?
– What are some ideas for future events?
– What strategies should we use to spread the word to more queergrads?
– Do we want to get any “official” recognition from the university?
– What are some ideas for future social events?
– etc.!

We hope you can join us for what I’m sure will be a lively and productive meeting!  We will be holding the meeting in the Anthropology & Sociology Building (ANSO) because this was the easiest place to book a room, but in the future we can certainly hold it elsewhere if ANSO is not convenient for folks.  One advantage of ANSO is that it’s just a hop, skip, and jump away from Koerner’s Pub so if people want to continue the discussion over a couple of beers after the meeting ends, that will be very easy to arrange.  Please note that we are keeping the meeting to only one hour in recognition of the fact that we are all very busy people, so if you can make it, please do your best to come a few minutes early–we’ll begin promptly at 3:00!

Here are the DETAILS:
When: Thursday, Feb. 3rd, 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Where: ANSO 2107 (main level, right next to the Sociology Main office)

Questions/Comments: Send an email to queergrads.ubc@gmail.com.

Upcoming event (Feb 8)

Queer U is an interdisciplinary student academic event on sexuality(ies) and gender(s) organized during Outweek at UBC. This event is an opportunity for students from all over the university to present their work on queer and trans issues to a broad audience of students, faculty members, staff, and community members. This event is free and all are welcome.

This year’s event will take place on Tuesday, February 8 from 4 to 7 in the Penthouse Lounge of the Graduate Student Society (GSS) building (map). It will be followed by a reception with food and refreshments in the same location.

Feel free to share the poster with anyone who may be interested. You can also see the full program for this year’s event on the Queer U website.

Upcoming events (Jan 10 + Jan 11)

Two events next week that may be interesting to our members:

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Discussion Forum: “Does it get better?:  Homosexuality as Intolerable”
Date: Monday January 10, 2011
Time:   12:00-3:00
Place:  3rd Floor Board Room, Liu Institute for Global Issues

Recent suicides of gay teenage boys in the US is only one story of a larger global violent backlash against sexual minorities.  The infamous proposal of new legislation to make acts of homosexuality punishable by death in Uganda, and the resurgence of persecution against gay, lesbian, transgendered and queer people across world indicate an alarming trend. Last month, the UN removed the words “sexual orientation” from the UN Resolution Condemning Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions; and in Canada, once the most progressive country in the world for refugee rights, sexual minorities face increasing challenges to obtain refugee status.

The “It Gets Better Project” sends a positive message to youth that despite the seeming intolerability of their experiences, over time they will find community, security and tolerance. But does this campaign mislead youth into thinking that “waiting it out” is the answer?  Join our discussion forum to explore these global questions:

  • What makes homosexuality intolerable?
  • For whom does it get better and why?
  • Why is tolerance, a tolerable political response?
  • What is “our” responsibility?

Join us to stimulate discussion and help us explore how we might engage the UBC and world community on these issues.

Please RSVP at http://fluidsurveys.com/surveys/liuinstitute/register-does-it-get-better/

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“Making Movies Out of Sex and Life”: A Queer Film Screening and Dialogue with Renowned Filmmaker, Barbara Hammer

January 11, 2011 doors at 6pm, show at 7pm
Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver BC)
Director Barbara Hammer // USA // 62 min

Tickets $7.00/free students/seniors (for free admission and a guaranteed seat, contact Carmen Radut

Four short films, incl Dyketactics, No Nooky TV, Sync Touch and A Horse is Not a Metaphor. Barbara Hammer will be present for a Q & A after the screening. See here for more information.

Barbara Hammer was born on May 15, 1939 in Hollywood, California. She is a visual artist working primarily in film and video and has made over 80 works in a career that spans 40 years. She is considered a pioneer of queer cinema. She has received numerous awards, most recently the Teddy for the best LGBT film at the 2009 International Berlin Film Festival (A Horse is Not a Metaphor). Her first book on queer cinema, HAMMER! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life launched at The Elizabeth Sackler Center at The Brooklyn Museum of Art on March 6, 2010 and is published by The Feminist Press of City Universit y of New h in fall of 2010 Hammer was honored with her first US retrospective at theMuseum of Modern Art in New York City to be followed by The Tate Modern in London in fall 2011.

Hammer Event co-sponsors also include: BOLDFest Conference & at UBC: Women’s and Gender Studies Program (WMST), Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies (CWAGS), Critical Studies in Sexuality (CSIS): The Jane Rule Endowment for Human Sexuality.

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January First Friday coming up

Happy New Year (at least to those of you who go by the Gregorian calendar)!

Our monthly meeting, First Friday, will happen as scheduled on this Friday, January 7. We will meet at 6:30pm at the Fountainhead on Davie St.

If you have any suggestions for the group, the website, where we could meet in February, or anything else, feel free to email us your ideas. We are hoping to organize a more administrative meeting in the coming weeks, to set out some guidelines for the group and figure out what people would like this group to be and what other activities we can start organizing. We’ll want your input so don’t worry, you’ll be invited to join us. We just need a date and location first…

See you Friday!

Thank you!

The end of the term has caught up with me so I haven’t had a chance to post this yet, but I wanted to extend a big thank you to all who came out for our December get-together. It was wonderful to see everyone!

We’re still trying to figure out how this group is going to function – expect some updates between now and the next First Friday, on Jan 7 (this time the location will be advertised here). To make sure you don’t miss anything, join the mailing list (on the right) and keep an eye on this website.

In the meanwhile – happy holidays!

This is starting to look vaguely organized!

Our second meeting is fast approaching (it is this Friday at 6pm – email us for the location), I hope to see a lot of new faces there! 🙂

We’re still working on getting the word out and setting up effective communication (we’re still working on getting the GSS to send out an email to all grad secretaries), but hopefully the following tools will help:

1) A listserv! Use the text box below to add your email to our listserv, and we’ll make sure to email you about events and meetings so you can stay in touch. I’ve also added this subscription box to the far-right column so that people can easily sign up when they visit the website.

Google Groups
Subscribe to The Network
Email:

Visit this group

2) A Facebook page. Same idea as the listserv, but some of us prefer to stay in touch with Facebook, so we want to give you that option.

If you have suggestions on how to help us get the word out about The Network, drop us a line or come join us on Friday!