Queer Minicon, 2022
April 8 @ 1:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Join us for this year’s Queer MiniCon centering themes of futurity and resilience in times of crisis.
This year’s Queer MiniCon will be a one-day virtual conference showcasing outstanding UNC undergraduate and graduate research in queer studies during the afternoon of April 8th. It will consist of two panels and a keynote address.
PANELS & PRESENTERS
Visual Culture and Political Resistance: 1:30-3:00 pm
Li-Anne Wright: “Intimacy, Internet, and Imagination: Community Through a Pandemic Zine”
Ashton Thorne: “This is for the Outcasts: Queercore’s Trans History & Potential for Trans Liberation”
Ashton Thorne (he/they) is a queer undergraduate student in psychology and philosophy. They are especially interested in queer and trans studies as they relate to subculture, radical politics, and disability justice
Meleena Gil: “Queering the Undocuqueer: Sheila Ortiz Taylor’s Coachella”
Meleena (they/she) is a PhD student and teaching fellow in the department of English and Comparative Literature also earning a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies. Meleena’s research focuses on contemporary LatinX literature and cultural production, queer theory, and the environmental humanities. They are interested in botanical epistemologies, alternative kinships, and futurity.
Victoria Neff: “Lesbian Photography and Ephemera: Documenting Queer Lives as Evidence of Resistance”
Victoria Neff is a dual-degree student pursuing their Bachelor’s and Master’s in public policy; with minors in social and economic justice as well as American studies. Their research interests focus on the convergence of education and family policy with LGBTQ youth resilience.
Henry Thomas: “Dos Espiritus: Conversations about Queer Latine Issues”
“Freshman from Albemarle, NC. My previous research experience pertains to the politicization of popular music, and the influence of club culture and disco on pop culture.”
Spirituality, Community Formation, and Queer Temporalities: 3:30-5:00 pm
Kevin Gomez-Gonzalez: “’The Show Cannot Go On’: Understanding the Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Queer Identity Formation”
Campbell Lindquist: “Assimilationist Verses Radical Transgender Politics: Exploring the Productive Potential of Tension in Discourses of Transgender History, Material Life, and Ethics”
Ryan Carroll: “Borderless Butterflies and a Queer Christ for the End-Times”
Ryan Carroll is a PhD student in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. His interests in queer studies include dialectical utopianism, queer liberation theology, and the relationship between theory and action. Ryan’s theological writing has been has been published by Macrina Magazine and the Jesuit Conference of Canada and North America.
Montia Daniels: “God Loves Women, and I Do Too: Black Queer North Carolinian Women’s and Non-binary Folks Engagement with Spirituality and Religion”
Montia Daniels is a senior studying women’s and gender studies and media and journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her interest in queer studies stems from her own experiences as a Black queer woman in the South, and her research focuses on how religion and spirituality have affected Southern Black queer women and non-binary folks.
Keynote Presenter Dr. Eddy Alvarez: 5:30-7:00 pm
“Sequined Routes and Movements: Queer and Trans Latinx Pasts and Futures”
Merging scholarly research, creative nonfiction, performance and reflection, this presentation is an offering to queer and trans Latinx lives and memories. Drawing on personal and collective memories and histories, physical and ephemeral archives, and analysis of popular culture and aesthetic, this talk maps and honors multiple and intertwining routes, journeys, and movimientos taken by families, activists, artists, scholars, healers, and more, as they “find sequins in the rubble” while imagining different pasts and futures.