Abstract for Global Fusion 2010 conference at Texas A&M

I just heard today that my paper was accepted for presentation at Global Fusion 2010: Sustenance and Globalization, an academic conference at Texas A&M University. Here is the version of the abstract that I submitted to the selection committee, which includes some basic information on the issues that my paper will cover.

Net neutrality and reproductive health: How new media platforms navigate controversial issues.

In this uncertain time for the future of access and openness on the Internet, it is not surprising that controversial issues are often not permitted the same amount of openness as neutral ones. A contentious issue around the world, especially in relation to the United States’ recent attempt to pass health care reform, has been and continues to be the issue of abortion, including not only access to the service itself but also access to information regarding the service. This project is interested in exploring how companies and institutions that own rights to new media services - such as search engines and text messaging services - censor messages or information regarding controversial issues such as abortion. What does this censorship imply for the future of public health when certain reproductive health NGOs and information sharing societies both within the US and in Latin America are the target of this silencing?

In this paper, I would like to begin with an introduction stating the current temperature of the net neutrality debate; provide a brief background on the issue of abortion at home and abroad; introduce and analyze some of the literature on net neutrality, Internet filtering, and access to information on reproductive health; outline the inspiration for the methodological approach to this research; and present two instances of censorship: Verizon Wireless's refusal to participate in NARAL Pro-Choice's text messaging campaign, and Google AdWords' exclusion of ads offering abortion information in over a dozen countries internationally.

I am SUPER excited for this opportunity, especially since this is the first academic conference to which I have ever submitted an abstract. Certainly encouraging and commending considering the flood of rejections I've received for job opportunities lately. Let me know what you think, and fill me in on some ideas for presentation methods - already thinking about Prezi or something similar.

"We're C-Coming Out": Lady Gaga's Videographic and Public Bisexual Persona

Below are some preliminary thoughts on a term paper for my Sexual Personae class.

Musical artist, performer and stylistic savant Lady Gaga's gender and sexual identity have come into question ever since the release of her first album The Fame in 2008. Reactions to her on- and off-screen persona bring to light the public's discomfort with a contemporary performance artist whose display of her body is not overtly sexualized to the preferences of the male gaze. Clearly taking influence from artists like Madonna and turning the costumes and visual styles up to maximum volume, Lady Gaga's music is in no way what makes her unique - this young woman is clearly an artist in the age of the viral video, incorporating hyper-contemporary and shocking images into her repertoire of dance and filmed and live performance. Lady Gaga's outrageous costumes, videos, and stage presence are all part of that repertoire, and paired with her public appearances at LGBTQ Rights rallies make for just an off-kilter enough performance of gender and sexuality for the general public to begin to question her identification as a woman. Even after Gaga admitted to identifying as a bisexual woman, rumors surrounding her sex organs did not subside - a rumor that her recent video "Telephone" goes to almost graphic lengths to disprove.



Lady Gaga's videos never shy away from sparking conversation and inciting controversy - especially in the fluidity of her sexual affections and attentions from one video to the next.

In this paper I would like to address the representations of Lady Gaga's sexuality in both her music videos as well as her public life of advocacy. I would like to begin by analyzing the discourse surrounding Gaga's gender and sexual identity in the popular press and on gossip blogs and in magazines, as well as some of her appearances at LGBTQ rallies and publicized support of those who have experienced discrimination because of their sexuality. The paper will then move into a contextual analysis of the sexual content of both "Paparazzi" and "Telephone," two videos which depict the fluidity of her sexual affections for first a male ("Paparazzi") and then a female ("Telephone") sexual subject.



I will analyze the ways that these two videos break from while simultaneously reinstating certain gender roles, depictions of heterosexual and same-sex relationships, and ideas of the male gaze of the female subject.

Preliminary Sources:

Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge, 1990, 1999.

Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, Second Edition, London: Routledge, 2004.

Straayer, Chris, Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-Orientations in Film and Video, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Tyler, Parker, Screening the Sexes: Homosexuality and the Movies, New York: Holt, 1972.

Thoughts on Bernard Cache's EARTH MOVES

Beginning his text announcing that "architectural images seem to be a good starting point" (2) for distinguishing between and navigating around the myriad visual elements that are present in our daily lives, Bernard Cache continues his text with an exploration of the philosophical and formal nature of architecture. But delegating the text to this definition - assigning Earth Moves the category of a "formal and philosophical study of architecture" - would be far too limiting, for he indeed discusses a great deal more than just forms and thought. Architecture is indeed inherently about forms and shapes, and is therefore also about geometry and mathematical interests. Cache discusses the city of Lausanne, a Swiss city located near the shores of Lake Geneva. The topography of the city has been profiled by filmmakers like Godard, who in a short film about Lausanne describes the city to have a visual problem or inconsistency that is to him Cezannian in nature - broad, disconnected spaces that make navigating the terrain problematic.



Cache chooses to profile the city of Lausanne due to its unique topography and geography that somehow dictated the construction of roads, buildings, works of art, and so on. However, Cache goes on to remind us that "in no case does the identity of a site preexist, for it is always the outcome of a construction" (15). For Cache, no destination has a predetermined future or path along which it necessarily will or must follow, an assertion that should strike a familiar chord with readers of Deleuze: one of the French philosopher's key concepts is a subscription to process ontology, which privileges being as becoming, as transformation, as constant change. Gilles Deleuze tends to prioritize difference over identity, a concept that is almost directly paraphrased in Cache's affirmation that once a being is defined or once a place has a definition, it is no longer capable of evolution. Remembering Todd May's definition of Deleuze's main question "how might one live?", Cache's own question regarding the development of architectural projects on a topographic space could possibly be summed up as "how might this space be altered?"

After attending class and discussing, albeit briefly, Cache's text and its significance to the world of critical architectural theory and Cache's relationship to Deleuze (they were contemporaries, even though Cache's text was not published until almost 12 years after it was written and only because Deleuze cross-referenced Cache's ideas in his own work, thus giving him notoriety), I found myself developing a new appreciation for Cache's approach to architecture and the interrelated realms of science, mathematics, and representational art. It was interesting to learn that not just Deleuze's ideas on the individual - or what he would call the becoming-human (so in this case, the becoming-site?) - are what influenced Cache, but also Simondon's embrace of individuation and his subsequent rejection of preformism, a rejection that he came to after his studies of physical matter led him to dismiss this idea of substance. A rejection of preformism can also be said to be a rejection of the preexisting identity of a geological site, something that Cache adamantly repeats throughout his text and his argument. I must say that this idea is quite appealing to me, especially because it expresses the possibility of unlimited potential, a potential that one would not normally assign to an inanimate object. In some ways, a rejection of preformism and an embrace of individuation opens the door for so much creativity, even if the site is already altered to a certain specification or a temporary definition of what it is at that moment; once a concrete structure is formed on a specific site, this does not mean that the structure is permanent or the only way to define the site. Instead, defining a site as capable of endless possibilities allows for impermanence, creativity, and growth in the eternal becoming-site.

You can also find this post on Immanent Terrain, the class blog for Art After Deleuze.