PANEL TRANSMASCULINITIES

Speakers: Judith Halberstam (USA), Geertje Mak (Netherlands), Henry Rubin (USA). Moderator: Helen Hok-Sze Leung (Canada)

Masculinity is often still related to power and status. This programme challenges the notion that masculinity is only related and relevant to men. It shows wide-ranging practices and expressions of masculinity from transgender and women’s communities. The film programme explores traditions from different cultures that challenge the dominant position of masculinity in films ranging from Albania to India. The panel discussion TransMasculinities will take up these questions.

Guest speakers are Judith ‘Jack’ Halberstam (USA), Geertje Mak (the Netherlands) and Henry Rubin (USA). During the panel the speakers will discuss sensibilities and practices of masculinities that transcend many classical models of masculinity and manhood from historical, sociological, cultural and contemporary media perspectives. They will also explore the possibilities and questions of embodiment and gender crossing within women’s, drag king and transgender communities. Moderator: Helen Hok-Sze Leung (Canada).


Judith "Jack" Halberstam is Professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at UC San Diego. Halberstam is the author of Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and The Technology of Monsters (Duke UP, 1995), Female Masculinity (Duke UP 1998) and co-author with Del LaGrace Volcano of The Drag King Book (Serpent's Tail, 1999). Halberstam is completing one manuscript on "Transgender Bodies" and working on a new book on "Queer Temporalities and Subcultural Lives."

Geertje Mak is historian and author of Mannelijke Vrouwen. Over grenzen van sekse in de 19e eeuw (Boom 1997) (Masculine Women. Crossing sex boundaries in the 19th-century) and Sporen van verplaatsing. Honderd jaar nieuwkomers in Overijssel (Traces of Displacement. A century of migrants in Overijssel) IJsselacademie, 2000). Currently she is working as a post-doc on the history of "Hermaphroditism and the sexed self" (Europe 1600 - 1908) and as project co-ordinator of a multicultural media company.

Henry Rubin is an American sociologist who transitioned as a Lecturer at Harvard University. As an peripatetic scholar, he has taught classes at Clark University, Hamilton College, and Tufts University while finishing his book on transsexual men. Self Made Men will be available in June 2003 from Vanderbilt University Press.

Helen Hok-Sze Leung received her B.A. in English from Oxford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University, where she teaches gender studies, queer theory, literature, and film. Her current research focuses on queer and transgender representations in Hong Kong culture.





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