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OPTIMISM AND DIS/ORDER

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Ken Cavanaugh

Dr. Mairead Sullivan

Department of Women’s and Gender Studies

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Loyola Marymount University

November 20, 2017

Whiteness, Resistance, and Performance in

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

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QUEER AGING SCHOLARSHIP

  • Current scholarship aims to assess the physical and mental health/wellness of LGBT older adults to better understand the relationship between sexual orientation and health outcomes.�
  • Here, I aim to think more deliberately about the roles and implications of whiteness, political optimism, and pleasure in aging narratives by examining the practices and philosophies of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

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THE SISTERS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE

“The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence® is a leading-edge Order of queer nuns... the Sisters devote themselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. We believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty and we use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.”

https://www.thesisters.org

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THE SISTERS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE

https://www.thesisters.org

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

  • What is the culture of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence? What are experiences of community and kinship within The Sisters?�
  • How does queer subcultural involvement affect experiences of queer aging?�
  • How might critical race theory and Afro-Pessimism frame and complicate the practices and philosophies of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence?

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SIGNIFICANCE

  • I hope to contribute to growing interdisciplinary discourse around age, sexuality, gender, and race using queer and critical race theories. �
  • An expansion and criticism of gerontology.�
  • A venue for considering a wider debate between the value of western political narratives of progress and more pessimistic political realist narratives of agency and possibility.

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RESEARCH DESIGN

1. Methodologies

2. Sampling�3. Data Collection

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REFERENCES

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 1 edition. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Cole, Sara Mae. “Ergodic Ontogeny: Influences of Interactive Media on Identity.” Ph.D., University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2013. https://search.proquest.com/genderwatch/docview/1497944436/abstract/518F223878B24C22PQ/17.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox. Revised edition. New York : Berkeley, Calif.: Grove Press, 2008.

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. 1 edition. New York: Routledge, 2012.

———. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. Revised ed. edition. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000.

Feinberg, Leslie. Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue. Unknown edition. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, 1999.

“Homosexual Desire.” Duke University Press. Accessed September 18, 2017. www.dukeupress.edu/homosexual-desire.

Lorber, Judith. Paradoxes of Gender. Yale University Press, 1994. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1bhkntg.

Padilla-Miller, Alina. “Digital Gender: Construction, Performance and Experience in Second Life.” Ph.D., University of Oregon, 2014. https://search.proquest.com/genderwatch/docview/1535090739/abstract/518F223878B24C22PQ/11.

Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs 5, no. 4 (1980): 631–60.

Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” Diacritics 17, no. 2 (1987): 65–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/464747.

“The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.” The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Accessed November 14, 2017. https://www.thesisters.org.

Velding, Victoria G. “Growing up Tween: Femininity, Masculinity, and Coming of Age.” Ph.D., Wayne State University, 2015. https://search.proquest.com/genderwatch/docview/1728803679/abstract/518F223878B24C22PQ/13.

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