Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Session 5.17 Gender and Sexuality
Presentation #1 Title
LGBT in Appalachia: A Queer Quartet
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Cynthia Burack will address two phenomena that are related to the ex-gay movement of recent years. The first is the formation of a compassionate Christian conservative agenda that combines commitments to helping LGB people and pregnant/post-abortive women repent and renounce their sinful identities. The second phenomenon is the movement’s own internal struggle over change of sexual orientation, a struggle that was well underway by 2011 when Exodus came to West Virginia. Carol Mason will extend scholarship on “the rural queer” by examining the potentials and pitfalls of LGTBQ people claiming normalcy in Appalachia. She’ll look at recent film productions from AMI, the Appalachian Media Institute, for clues as to how young queers in Kentucky navigate the troubles and triumphs of claiming normalcy in a place long depicted as America’s deviant backwoods. Richard Parmer will discuss the advantages and risks of using a nature-based argument for GLBTQ political projects, both generally and in Appalachia. He’ll explore where fundamentalists' explanations and arguments about "the natural" fit into the Christian Right's ideology, including its role in relation to conservative readings of scripture. He’ll also consider to what extent, if any, counter-arguments about what is natural can affect the Christian Right's anti-gay position. Jeff Mann will read a short segment of a personal essay examining the ways that queer nonconformists brought up in fundamentalist-steeped Appalachia are shaped by and react to that often hostile element in their native culture.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jeff Mann has published twelve books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, all of which deal with gay identity in Appalachia. He directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Tech.
Presentation #2 Title
Surly Bear in the Bible Belt
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Cynthia Burack is professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality at Ohio State. Most recently she is the author of Tough Love: Sexuality, Compassion, and the Christian Right, published in the SUNY Press Queer Politics and Cultures series, which she co-edits with Jyl J. Josephson.
Presentation #3 Title
The Perils of Christian Compassion
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Carol Mason examines the language of right-wing movements and is author of Reading Appalachia from Left to Right: Conservatives and the 1974 Kanawha County Textbook Controversy (Cornell University Press, 2009). She is professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky.
Presentation #4 Title
The Trouble with Normal in Appalachia: New Queer Productions from KentuckyExamining "the natural" in Anti-Gay Christian Rhetoric”
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Richard Parmer is a PhD student in the English Department at the University of Kentucky. His research examines connections between articulations of nature and disenfranchised peoples in early American, as well as Appalachian, writing.
LGBT in Appalachia: A Queer Quartet
Corbly Hall 467
Cynthia Burack will address two phenomena that are related to the ex-gay movement of recent years. The first is the formation of a compassionate Christian conservative agenda that combines commitments to helping LGB people and pregnant/post-abortive women repent and renounce their sinful identities. The second phenomenon is the movement’s own internal struggle over change of sexual orientation, a struggle that was well underway by 2011 when Exodus came to West Virginia. Carol Mason will extend scholarship on “the rural queer” by examining the potentials and pitfalls of LGTBQ people claiming normalcy in Appalachia. She’ll look at recent film productions from AMI, the Appalachian Media Institute, for clues as to how young queers in Kentucky navigate the troubles and triumphs of claiming normalcy in a place long depicted as America’s deviant backwoods. Richard Parmer will discuss the advantages and risks of using a nature-based argument for GLBTQ political projects, both generally and in Appalachia. He’ll explore where fundamentalists' explanations and arguments about "the natural" fit into the Christian Right's ideology, including its role in relation to conservative readings of scripture. He’ll also consider to what extent, if any, counter-arguments about what is natural can affect the Christian Right's anti-gay position. Jeff Mann will read a short segment of a personal essay examining the ways that queer nonconformists brought up in fundamentalist-steeped Appalachia are shaped by and react to that often hostile element in their native culture.
