A Letter from the Executive Director

Working with CLAGS this last year at our quarterly Board meetings, at our monthly committee meetings, and with the daily operations of our office, I\u27m continually impressed by the sophistication of our programs, the depth of our discussions, and the passion of our arguments about gay and lesbian and queer studies and its relationship to our diverse communities. After a productive year of four conferences and our monthly colloquia, amplified by co-sponsored events that sometimes didn\u27t even make it onto our annual calendar, I\u27m proud of the richness of the work we\u27ve sponsored and presented

Futures of the Field

Gay and lesbian studies has been in the mainstream press quite a lot over the last several months, particularly after Yale University\u27s refusal to accept Larry Kramer\u27s generous gift to establish a program on their campus. Venues such as the New York Times have recently filed cover stories on the status of sexuality studies on campuses around the United States, and on the number of campuses in which undergraduate students can major in gay and lesbian studies and attendant fields

Remembering Beyond the Self: Crossing Borders 2001

In a passionate keynote address at the third in CLAGS\u27s series of Crossing Borders conferences, Cherríe Moraga called on conference participants to hold the pussy in public, to join otherwise isolated Latina/o artists in bringing racialized queerness into public debate. Presented at the University of Texas at Austin in February, Crossing Borders 2001: U.S. Latina/o Queer Performance was linked by its coalitional politics around race and ethnicity—broadly figured as latinidad—and gender and sexuality. This three-day gathering was sponsored by CLAGS through a generous gift from the Michael C.P. Ryan Estate and co-sponsored by the Center for Dramatic and Performance Studies at the Department of Theatre and Dance at UT

A Message from the New Executive Director

I\u27m honored and pleased to be succeeding Marty Duberman as Executive Director of CLAGS. I taught in theatre and drama and women\u27s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before I accepted my present position in the PhD Program in Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. At Madison, teaching and writing in lesbian performance theory, the fact that a national center for lesbian and gay studies had been established in New York gave me a sense that the field in which I worked was arriving, securing its legitimacy and its vibrancy and insisting on its visibility. In my two years at CUNY, during which I\u27ve served on the CLAGS board, I\u27ve been impressed with the level of activity and accomplishment the center can boast: I know of very few institutes or associations that manage to sponsor and organize as many public events as CLAGS, events foundational to the most important conversations happening in the field

Academics, Advocacy, and Activism

One of the ways in which CLAGS distinguishes itself from other academically based research centers is through our firm commitment to bridging the academic and activist spheres within the larger lesbian and gay social and political communities. This Spring, we sponsored a roundtable discussion addressing arts censorship that included twenty-five academics and activists concerned about the ways in which the decrease in public arts funding on national and local levels around the country is meant to further disenfranchise lesbians, gay men, and people of color (whether or not they\u27re lesbian or gay)

Politics, Pedagogy, and Shaping Public Policy

We never exactly know when history is going to catch up with us, when we\u27ll be in the midst of a crucial moment to which posterity will refer as key, as significant, as a lynchpin on which other moments, other decisions, other understandings were founded. The impeachment hearings recently conducted in the House of Representatives dragged us all, unwilling and amazed, into a dark hour of American politics, one in which partisan fury and ideological hatred are translated into strategies of power that disregard and reverse electoral politics. There\u27s much to say about the disappointing performance of Bill Clinton as President, especially with regard to gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered/queer issues; but the prospect of his ouster by Representatives and Senators with purely political goals is chilling for this country

A Fond Farewell

Sadly, this is my last column as the Executive Director of CLAGS. After five years teaching and working at CUNY\u27s Graduate Center, I\u27ve decided to accept a position at the University of Texas at Austin. This was a difficult decision to make, but the offer of an endowed chair in the Department of Theatre and Dance at UT was finally too attractive to pass up

Reflections from a Former Executive Director

I joined CLAGS as a board member in 1994, at a transitional moment in its history. The grassroots activist project that Marty Duberman had started in his living room had been recognized as one of CUNY\u27s Research Centers for only a short time at that point, and many people on the board struggled with what it meant to be institutionally affiliated. The board had grown from people Marty knew personally to a broader group of gay and lesbian scholars (or simply scholars working on gay and lesbian issues) recommended by others. For example, I was brought to the board by Alisa Solomon, and met Marty for the first time at my first meeting