This conference aims to examine how LGBTQ representation has changed through time, continues to evolve in the present, and what role it might play in the future. It draws on recent developments in queer on-screen representation – ranging from the increased focus on transgender and queer of colour protagonists in series such as Pose (2018, FX-), Transparent (2014-2019, Amazon Prime), Vida (2018-, Starz) and Orange is the New Black (2013-2019, Netflix), to depictions of queer characters in children’s programmes such as Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe (2013-) – in order to trace how LGBTQ media comments on both the current state of queer rights, as well as the possibility of queer futurity (Edelman 2004; Muñoz 2009). At the same time, it builds on work done on queer archives and histories (Cvetkovich 2003; Castiglia and Reed 2012; Dunn 2016; De Kosnik 2016) in order to question how queer lives were once commemorated, how these memories live on, and how representation has changed from then to now.
The conference will take place in Old College at the University of Edinburgh, which is fully accessible.
(Text sourced from conference website)