2009

NATIONAL QUEER CONFERENCE 

On 10th and 11th of April 2009, SFE organized Queer Thoughts: A National Queer Conference. It was a pioneering move in the academic landscape in Kolkata, as it was the first academic conference on the ‘queer agenda’. 

This two-day conference was an endeavour to increase the visibility of queer issues and politics in academia and among the student community, which in SFE’s imagination, necessarily helps mobilise the youth population against homophobia, heterosexism and sexism.. Further, the conference aimed at queering the present monolithic world view on sexuality. The conference engaged the academic and the activist youth in a dialogue of defining, living, expressing and politicizing the term ‘Queer’. It accommodated 16 papers from all over the country and abroad, where students, researchers and young NGO professionals presented their ideas, thoughts and understandings of the aforementioned themes in four sessions.

The 4 sessions – on defining, living, expressing and politicizing the term ‘Queer’– were chaired by Dr. Asha Achuthan (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore), Prof. Dr. Paromita Chakravarti (The School of Women Studies and Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata), Ms. Maya Sharma  (veteran feminist activist, researcher and writer, and part of a grassroots women’s organization Vikalp in Baroda), and Dr. Chayanika Shah (queer feminist activist, an active member of Forum

Against Oppression of Women), and two special lectures by Dr. Anup Dhar (Associate Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore), and Ms. Pramada Menon (feminist and queer activist working on issues of sexuality, sexual rights, gender, and violence against women). The success of Queer Thoughts was evident from the active participation of students from different educational institutions of West Bengal, doctors, lawyers, activists dealing with social issues and NGO professionals.