Gender and Sexuality in/and the Romance Languages – An International Conference

What does it mean to think or write critically about gender and sexuality in languages that are themselves grammatically gendered? What ambiguities, instabilities, or possibilities can arise from playing with grammatical gender? What limitations or distinctions does grammatical gender (nominally) impose? At a glance grammatical gender would seem to be repressive in its operations, forcing all subjects to conform to a linguistic binary. Yet, grammatical gender also can introduce opportunities for non-normative alignment of bodies signified, and the terms used to signify them. For instance the tale that in English has become a heteronormative Disney fantasy – Beauty and the Beast – in the French original posits a relationship between two beings designated in grammatically feminine terms – la belle and la bête. Moreover, users of romance languages are finding ways to creatively adapt and transform languages to meet new needs.

We invite contributions that explore the specificities of gender and sexuality as articulated in cultural and critical works produced in or engaging with romance languages (in the broadest sense, including, for instance, all creoles connected to romance languages) and in all the places and contexts where these are spoken. Possible contributions might focus upon literature, performance, translation, pedagogy, or theory, and may approach their objects of study from a wide variety of vantage points and using diverse methodologies.