
	Contact Us \| Find a Person \| Campus Map \| Search \| A-Z

Home > Campus Events > Event Details

Event Details

"Family Feeling": The Rise and Fall of Anti-Family Politics

Inside/OUT 2006/2007 Speakers’ Series
Profiling LGBTQ-Related Work at the University of Alberta

December 7 – “Family Feeling”: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Family Politics

Presenter: Dr. Cindy Patton, Canada Research Chair in Community, Culture and Health, and Professor of Sociology/Anthropology and Women's Studies, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia

“Gay marriage” activism has provoked debate between gay liberationists and proponents of gay marriage as a form of civil right. Many activists are concerned about the form that “gay marriage” politics have taken, but are nonetheless deeply moved by, for example, the recent wedding of the “gay mounties”. This talk employs a little-known work on “family feeling” by Pierre Bourdieu to offer an account of the affective changes that occurred–or did not occur–from the original ambitions of the gay liberation movement to the present. While ultimately critical of gay marriage activism, Patton suggests where there might be common ground for reconnecting the 1970s anti-family activism with contemporary “post-marriage” politics.

Cindy Patton holds the Canada Research Chair in Community Culture and Health at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, is a Senior Scholar of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and Professor of Sociology/Anthropology and Women’s Studies. She was an AIDS activist and community organizer throughout the 1980s, and has subsequently worked as a researcher and scholar. Her publications include: Inventing AIDS (1990); Last Served? Gendering the HIV Pandemic (1994); Fatal Advice (1996); Queer Diasporas (w/Benigno Sanchez-Eppler 2000), Globalizing AIDS (2002), and a forthcoming study of post-WWII popular culture, Acting Real (2007). She directs a qualitative research lab (the Health Research and Training Facility (http://health.arts.sfu.ca) with a focus on community based research, and which provides substantial pro-bono work in research design and evaluation for small community groups. The larger research program includes analysis of neighbourhoods coping with HIV, with an emphasis on the role of housing and the particular problems of poor people. In addition, she continues to publish critical essays in media studies.

This event made possible by financial support from the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality.

After each presentation we invite you to join us at the Sugar Bowl (10922 88 Avenue NW) to continue to network and socialize.

Inside/OUT is a campus-based network for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified, queer (LGBTQ) and allied faculty, graduate students, academic, and support staff of the University of Alberta. We also invite undergraduate students and interested members of the community to attend.

Inside/OUT is designed to provide a safe and confidential space on the university campus for LGBTQ persons and their allies to network, socialize, and have fun in a supportive and welcoming environment.

For more information regarding Inside/OUT, please contact Kristopher Wells or Marjorie Wonham or visit http://www.mailman.srv.ualberta.ca/mailman/listinfo/inside-out to join the confidential Inside/OUT listserv.

Funding and support for the Inside/OUT 2006/07 Speakers’ Series has been generously provided by the Office of Human Rights, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta Bookstores, CJSR FM88, and the Department of Educational Policy Studies.