Tuesday, October 2
Jonathan D. Katz, “Queer Before Stonewall: Art, Eros and the Sixties”
Yeager Recital Hall, 6 p.m.
Katz explores why in the art world of the late 50s and 60s, before human differences were particularized and made over into artistic identity, a universal human capacity – Eros – was elevated to determining status and made ground for global politics of social liberation. A diverse group of artists – female and male, queer and straight – produced an art that, in politicizing the body while dimming its signs of differentiation, paradoxically created social categories like feminist and queer that now obscure Eros’ formative and foundational role.