Spring 2011 Global Queer Series
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The inaugural Spring 2011 Global Queer Series is a five-part series of public discussions on LGBTQ human rights issues in the global arena.
Co-hosted by Timothy Patrick McCarthy and Ian Lekus
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Global Queer Series, Part One: "LGBTQ Human Rights in Palestine"
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
6:30 - 8:00 pm
Starr Auditorium (Belfer Building, Floor 2) Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Directions to Venue
Details:
Abeer Mansour (guest) is a feminist Palestinian queer activist who is dedicated to promoting the inclusion of Palestinian queer women in Palestinian society. Abeer joined Aswat's staff in 2008 as a resource development and networking coordinator. She represents Aswat in local and global events to explain about the multiple forms of oppression Palestinian queer women face: as a national indigenous minority living inside Israel, struggling for equal human and civil rights; as women battling for equality with men in conservative and patriarchal Palestinian society; and finally as queer women living in a hetero-normative culture which is often extremely homophobic, fighting discrimination and marginalization. Abeer networks with partner feminist and human rights organizations to promote the inclusion of the queer agenda in their activism.
Haneen Maikey (guest) is a 32-year-old Palestinian queer activist who lives and works in Jerusalem. Her involvement in the queer Palestinian community started in late 2001 as the coordinator of the Palestinian Project at the Jerusalem Open House. During her years under the JOH, Haneen learned and led a long-term process of self- and community-development and discovery, moving from a local, service-oriented project under the umbrella of a Jewish-Israeli organization to a Palestinian-independent-grassroots-political-LGBTQ group, working both inside Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories. Since 2008, Haneen has been the director of Al Qaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society.
Afsaneh Najmabadi (moderator) is the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. She is also Chair of the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her last book, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity (University of California Press, 2005), received the 2005 Joan Kelly Memorial Prize from the American Historical Association. She is currently working on Sex in Change: Configurations of Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary Iran, and on Genus of Sex: How Jins Became Sex in Iran. Dr. Najmabadi and a team of Qajar historians received a NEH grant to develop a comprehensive digital archive and website that will preserve, link, and render accessible primary source materials related to the social and cultural history of women’s worlds during the reign of the Qajar dynasty (1785 – 1925) in Iran. |
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Global Queer Series, Part Two: "LGBTQ Human Rights in Slovenia and the Balkans"
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
6:30 - 8:00 pm
Starr Auditorium (Belfer Building, Floor 2) Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Directions to Venue
Details:
Mitja Blazic (guest) is a freelance journalist and activist for LGBT human rights and HIV/AIDS prevention. He currently coordinates the national campaign—“For All Families!”—which supports the new family code that will legalize same-sex marriages and adoptions in Slovenia (www.zavsedruzine.si). This work requires him to represent the campaign in the national parliament. He is also a national trainer for human rights (Program Compass of the Council of Europe); a member of the steering committee of the Pride Parade 2010 (www.ljubljanapride.si); a member of the supervisory board of DIH, the association for the integration of homosexuality; a member of the national AIDS commission at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia; coordinator of activities of the national HIV/AIDS campaign, “Spread the Word, Not the Virus!” (www.stop-aids.si); and a member of the editorial board of the LGBT magazine, Narobe (www.narobe.si).
Ian Lekus (moderator) is Lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University, where he serves on the Advisory Board of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research areas include LGBTQ history and politics; social movements; war, peace, and conflict studies; and the cultural and political dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Dr. Lekus received his Ph.D. in history from Duke University. He is currently finishing Queer and Present Dangers: Masculinity, Sexual Revolution, and the Sixties (under advance contract with the University of North Carolina Press) and developing new projects on global queer rights and on the international history of HIV/AIDS. He currently serves as both the Chair of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History (an affiliated society of the American Historical Association) and as Secretary and Executive Board member of the Peace History Society. |
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Global Queer Series, Part Three: "LGBTQ Human Rights in Mexico and Latin America"
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
6:30 - 8:00 pm
Starr Auditorium (Belfer Building, Floor 2) Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Directions to Venue
Details:
 Jorge Saavedra, M.D. (guest) is Chief of Global Affairs for AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The first openly gay and openly HIV-positive person to ever have a high-level government position in a developing country, Dr. Saavedra was head of the National AIDS Program in Mexico from 2003-2009. In recent years, he has been one of the leading promoters of the Same-Sex Marriage Act in Mexico City, a successful initiative that made Mexico City the first place in Latin America to allow gay marriage. He was married to his partner Gabriel on World AIDS Day on December 1, 2010, inside of the first HIV Clinic in Mexico City, where he was the founding director 10 years before. During his time in charge of the NAP in Mexico, he worked closely with Dr. Julio Frenk, current dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and former Secretary of Health of Mexico, to assure universal coverage of anti-retroviral treatment for people living with AIDS. He also helped to build 53 HIV outpatient clinics all over the country. He also started the first-ever anti-stigma, anti-discrimination, and anti-homophobia TV campaigns, as well as the first openly government-endorsed condom promotion and distribution initiatives. Dr. Saavedra earned his M.D. from the National University of Mexico and has two Master’s degrees—one in Public Health and the other in Health Policy and Management—from Harvard University. Dr. Saavedra has been living with HIV since 1985.
Bradley S. Epps (moderator) is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University. He is also past Chair and the current Director of Graduate Studies for the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. A prolific scholar who specializes in 19th and 20th Century Spanish and Latin American Literature, Catalan Language and Literature, and Gender and Queer Studies, Professor Epps has published dozens of articles, essays, and reviews, and is the author or editor of several books, including All About Almodovar: A Passion for Cinema (Minnesota, 2009) and Significant Violence: Oppression and Resistance in the Narratives of Juan Goytisolo (Oxford, 1996). Professor Epps received his B.A. from Wake Forest University, his M.A. from University of Virginia, and his Ph.D. from Brown University. |
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Global Queer Series, Part Four: "LGBTQ Human Rights in Uganda"
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
6:30 - 8:00 pm
Allison Dining Room (Taubman Building, Floor 5) Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Directions to Venue
Details:
Val Kalende (guest) is a Ugandan LGBT rights activist currently pursuing a master’s degree in Theological Studies (feminist and queer theologies) at the Episcopal Divinity School (EDS). Her first encounter with activism was in 2003 as an undergraduate student at Makerere University in Uganda. A lesbian student had been harassed and beaten up by school authorities, leading to her death. This incident would become the driving force behind Val’s decision to become an out-spoken activist. Together with friends whom she occasionally met at a local lesbian-owned bar, Val helped to start Freedom and Roam Uganda, the only lesbian organization in Uganda. Val has played a key role as a front line activist, community organizer, and spirited leader. She also served on the Board of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of LGBT organizations in Uganda. Her recent contribution to Uganda’s LGBT movement has been becoming an ambassador for the campaign against the Anti-Homosexuality bill, a draconian legislation also known as the “Kill-the-Gays Bill,” which is currently being debated in the parliament of Uganda. Prior to joining EDS, Val traveled to the United States at the invitation of the U.S Department of State to attend the International Visitor Leadership Program, an exchange tour on which she addressed LGBT issues in her country and the role of U.S. conservative evangelicals in sponsoring homophobia in Africa. A former journalist who lost her job because of her outspoken stance on LGBT rights and once jailed for campaigning for the inclusion of LGBT people in Uganda’s National HIV/AIDS Programs, Val says her vision is to see a world where LGBT people will not be judged by their sexual orientation or gender identity but by the content of their character.
Timothy Patrick McCarthy (moderator) is Core Faculty and Director of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He also teaches in the undergraduate honors program in History and Literature. A historian of social movements, Dr. McCarthy received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has published four books—The Radical Reader: A Documentary Anthology of the American Radical Tradition (2003), Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism (2006), Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism (2010), and The Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of The People’s Historian (2011)—all by the New Press. An award-winning teacher and activist, Dr. McCarthy was a founding member of Barack Obama’s National LGBT Leadership Council. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Face Value, a new organization dedicated to eradicating social and cultural stigma against LGBT people. In October 2010, he and his Face Value colleagues received a $730,000 grant from the Ford Foundation as part of a new initiative on “Sexuality, Health, and Rights Among Youth in the United States.” |
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Global Queer Series, Part Five: "LGBTQ Human Rights in Iraq"
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
6:30 - 8:00 pm
Allison Dining Room (Taubman Building, Floor 5) Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Directions to Venue
Details:
 Michael Luongo (guest) is an adjunct professor at New York University, teaching travel writing, and is a freelance journalist, editor and photographer. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Bloomberg News, National Geographic Traveler, Out Traveler and many other publications. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of several travel books, including Frommer's Buenos Aires, America's best selling guide to the Argentine capital; Gay Tourism: Culture, Identity and Sex, co-edited with Dr. Stephen Clift and Carry Callister; and the Routledge Gay Travels in the Muslim World, the only gay-themed American book ever published in Arabic. He also wrote a novel, The Voyeur, published by Alyson Books in 2007. Professor Luongo has traveled to more than 80 countries and all 7 continents, with a geographic concentration in Latin America and the Middle East. He has written extensively on culture, tourism, and human rights in the context of war, focusing on Iraq and Afghanistan. His work has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the Society of American Travel Writers, and other groups. More on his work is at www.michaelluongo.com.
Ian Lekus (moderator) is Lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University, where he serves on the Advisory Board of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research areas include LGBTQ history and politics; social movements; war, peace, and conflict studies; and the cultural and political dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Dr. Lekus received his Ph.D. in history from Duke University. He is currently finishing Queer and Present Dangers: Masculinity, Sexual Revolution, and the Sixties (under advance contract with the University of North Carolina Press) and developing new projects on global queer rights and on the international history of HIV/AIDS. He currently serves as both the Chair of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History (an affiliated society of the American Historical Association) and as Secretary and Executive Board member of the Peace History Society.
Timothy Patrick McCarthy (moderator) is Core Faculty and Director of the Human Rights and Social Movements Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He also teaches in the undergraduate honors program in History and Literature. A historian of social movements, Dr. McCarthy received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has published four books—The Radical Reader: A Documentary Anthology of the American Radical Tradition (2003), Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism (2006), Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism (2010), and The Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of The People’s Historian (2011)—all by the New Press. An award-winning teacher and activist, Dr. McCarthy was a founding member of Barack Obama’s National LGBT Leadership Council. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Face Value, a new organization dedicated to eradicating social and cultural stigma against LGBT people. In October 2010, he and his Face Value colleagues received a $730,000 grant from the Ford Foundation as part of a new initiative on “Sexuality, Health, and Rights Among Youth in the United States.” |
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