robert kulpa

A conference at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK.

Invited to give response to papers from the "Literature, Literary Studies, and Gender and Sexuality" Panel.

A Conference at the Gender Department and the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, Huddinge/Stockholm, Sweden.

Abstract: Can the Eastern Other Speak for Herself? Theorising Eastern European Sexualities...

Delivered with Joanna Mizielinska.

So far, a significant amount of academic literature about sexuality is about Western (Anglo-American) context, or has been written from (and for) this perspective. Even when considering a recent shift in queer studies to embrace margins and outskirts, de-centring politics of geo-location - the growing literature about "non-Western" cultures continues its investment in the post-colonial regions of Asia or Africa. Still, there is noticeably less work done about the West's "neighbouring" countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). By focusing on CEE we would like to pluralize and problematize the notion of "Western"/"non-Western" sexualities. We aim to critically assess the current state of knowledge about sexualities "outside" the all-pervasive framings of the "West"; and yet still, because they are "inside", we will focus on their expressions in the "nearby" and still under-explored region of Central and Eastern Europe.

The focus of our presentation will be on the possibilities of theorizing sexualities in CEE. So far, many articles showed how "West" produces "East" as its other. We have also shown how "East" subjectivises/objectivises "West", and legitimizes it through accepting and contributing (but also and profiting at times) to these processes of Othering. In Stockholm, we would like to take this discussion further and question both practices, asking: What could it mean to do queer/non-normative activism in CEE context? We want to move beyond first step recognition of local differences and incompatibility of Anglo-American models to CEE realities. Therefore we will look at CEE examples and try to bring them together in normative theoretical attempt at building the meaning of "queer" practices outside Western/inside European contexts.

Abstract: Queer Nation? Relations of the nationhood and the homosexuality.

There is an extensive body of academic work about gender and nationhood, discussing their intertwined relations. However, there seem to be significantly less work done on the nationhood and sexuality. This is however changing recently with fast growing literature from within mostly Western-based queer scholarship. This presentation will address the issue of nationality and homo/sexuality with the particular focus on the Central and Easter Europe (CEE) (and its position vis-à-vis the "West"). Of the plethora of issues and problems available for consideration, I would especially like to discuss gendered and sexed representations of nations; sexual stereotypisation of nations; scapegoating of sexual minorities in "times of transformation"; homosociality, homosexuality and homophobia in the nation-state's institutions. Moreover, it seems very on time to deliberate on nationalistic inclusion of feminist and "pro-gay" agenda in some Western countries, mostly at the expense of the rising state racism and anti-immigration policies (with consideration of the place of the CEE). Finally, it is also important to ruminate on the LGBT activism embracing "patriotism" and nationalist stances into their agenda. This short overview aims to show complexity and diversity of the relations between the nationhood and the homosexuality, complicating predominant suppositions about their mutual "incompatibility" and "exclusivity".

Abstract: "40 years of equality, 20 years of freedom"? Sexual politics in Central and Eastern Europe and the Western narrations of sexual liberation. 

In the proposed paper, I would like to discuss the relations of power, hegemony, inequality and neo-imperialism, in relations to sexual politics in "Central and Eastern Europe" ("CEE") and the "West". Firstly, I will reflect on the popular narration of LGBT history (from homophile, through gay liberation, AIDS, to queer) as constructed in "Western"/Anglo-American accounts of "sexual liberation". Secondly, I will consider implications of such narrative for/in "CEE" context by looking at it through the geo-temporal categories of "con-temporal periphery" and "temporal disjunction". Thirdly, I will ponder on the implications of what such "temporal disjunctions" between "CEE" and the "West" in sexual politics can mean not only for "CEE" but also the "Western" self-image. Ultimately, the purpose of my presentation is to consider the workings of hegemony and geography-temporality in the constructions of LGBT histories, and narrations of (sexual) liberation and progress.

Abstract: Con-Temporal Peripheries: Disjunctions in space and time, knowledge and activism, between Central-Eastern European and Western sexualities.

Recently, we could observe the proliferation of works about non-Western manifestations of sexuality. However, queer studies by embracing margins, outskirts, de-centring politics of geo-location, continue to be focused on post-colonial "far far away" regions, and almost no work is done about the "neighbouring" Central and Eastern Europe. In this presentation, I will try to problematize/pluralize the notion of Western sexuality and indicate "con-temporal periphery" - i.e. mechanisms of "othering" CEE (by, e.g. rendering it as "permanently transitional"/"post-communist").

After the collapse of the "Iron Curtain", Western-style politics was adopted throughout CEE, without much questioning of its historical particularisms and suitability for the new context. When lesbian and gay activism begin to emerge in the CEE countries, West was already at the 'queer' stage, with long history and plurality of models and forms of engagement. Conversely, the communist past of CEE built completely different social structures and modalities. This could be graphically represented as two separate geopolitical-temporal modalities running parallel, where in 1989 one of them finishes, and the other one becomes universal for both. Indeed, it should be even more complicated, and represented as "knotting" and "looping" of time(s).

However, often when we try to "undo"/explain those knotted realities, we try to "linearise" the "here and now" reality of CEE, by categorising various activities and approaches as belonging to a certain historical narrative. Thus organising the "knotted temporality of CEE" into "familiar" stages and inscribing it into particular history (here: into Western history of LGBTQ movements), we already simplify it in order to make sense of it. But do we actually succeed? Does such "unknotting" make sense? For whom? And what are the prerequisites to be able to understand it in either form? In other words, we feel it is important to ask, why certain models are familiar to "all"? And why "local" narrations of lesbian and gay emancipation will be seen as, precisely, "local" and not "universally" recognised?

With this presentation, I will undertake the task of questioning the power relations between "West" and "CEE", between western queer academic scholarship and CEE theoretical insights, calling for not only for "de-centralisation of queer theory", but also for greater attentiveness to spatial and temporal choices in doing so.

Abstract: (Un)translatable Queer? Or what is lost, and can be found in translation...

Delivered with Joanna Mizielinska and Agata Stasinska.

With our panel, we will undertake the task of questioning the power relations between the "West" and the "CEE", between western queer academic scholarship and CEE theoretical insights, calling not only for "de-centralisation" and "localization" of queer theor(ies), but also for greater attentiveness to spatial and temporal choices in doing so. We would also like to ask how Western concepts and ideas/queer theories are transformed by/in the local context.

Firstly, we will build wider theoretical framework about relations of knowledge and sexual politics in the "West" and the "Central and Eastern Europe" (CEE).

After the collapse of the "Iron Curtain", Western-style politics was adopted throughout CEE, without much questioning of its historical particularisms and suitability for the new context. When lesbian and gay activism begin to emerge in the CEE countries, West was already at the 'queer' stage, with long history and plurality of models and forms of engagement. Conversely, the communist past of CEE built completely different social structures and modalities. This could be graphically represented as two separate geopolitical-temporal modalities running parallel, where in 1989 one of them finishes, and the other one becomes universal for both. Indeed, it should be even more complicated, and represented as "knotting" and "looping" of time(s) after 1989.

However, often when we try to "undo"/explain those knotted realities, we try to "linearise" the "here and now" reality of CEE, by categorising various activities and approaches as belonging to a certain historical narrative. Thus organising the "knotted temporality of CEE" into "familiar" stages and inscribing it into particular history (here: into Western history of LGBTQ movements), we already simplify it in order to make sense of it. But do we actually succeed? Does such "unknotting" make sense? For whom? And what are the prerequisites to be able to understand it in either form? In other words, we feel it is important to ask, why certain models are familiar to "all"? And why "local" narrations of lesbian and gay emancipation will be seen as, precisely, "local" and not "universally" recognised? We will be probing the usability of such terms as "West", "Europe", "progress", "transformation", "post-communism", "Human Rights".

Secondly, we will narrow the focus and ask what happens when we adopt/adapt queer theory to non-Western/non-American contexts (specifically CEE).

By focusing on problems with "translating" queer theory, we try to understand how (if at all) it influences the LGBT politics in Poland. By critical reading of "Let Them See Us" (2002) campaign, we will argue that queering politics can mean different things in different local settings. Hence, what can be described as an identity approach from the U.S. perspective, can have its queer face in another geographical and cultural setting.

On the other hand, we will ponder on the universal question of queer alternative to identity politics, but as seen from CEE and not-Western perspective. How queer functions and what is its impact on sexual politics? Finally, we will look at recent smears on "queer theorists in Poland", blaming "them" for weakening the LGBT effectiveness. Why is "queer theory" scapegoated by LGBT activists at this particular moment will be explored in the next section.

Thirdly, we will concentrate on a case study from Poland, where we will explore recent campaign "Love doesn't exclude" to exemplify our analysis.

By exploring "Love doesn't exclude" campaign, we will try to understand the recent shift form "coming out" to "recognition of relationships" as the main goals of the LGBT movement. Should we read it in the context of two recent legal actions undertaken by Polish citizens against Polish state? And what is the significance of fact that these were propelled by "ordinary working-class men" that have never been engaged in LGBT activism. Can we read the shift in LGBT politics, as indicated above, as a reaction to demands of "ordinary lesbian and gay people", or reaction to their criticism? And why this shift coincides with the recent animosity towards queer theory in Poland?

Abstract: Visions of Europe: Eurovision, (homo)sexuality, and Old/New Europe(s).

During the workshop, I would like to offer to the group for further discussion a set of problems and issues, which I hope will help us to develop our understanding of the relations between sexualities, performance, "Europe", and "West" and "East".

I will begin with excerpts from a documentary "Beyond Pink Curtain"(Charles 2009). The film centers on three countries (Serbia, United Kingdom, Lithuania) to talk about homophobia and sexual rights. The film's use and narration of Eurovision (held in 2008 in Belgrade) serves as an interesting starting point for the consideration of how "Western Europe" and "Central and Eastern Europe" are represented in terms of "sexual rights progress" and "homophobia".

I will try to exemplify and explore the relations of the "West" and the "East" (brought about during the first workshop) in the field of sexual and national politics of "EUropean Nationhood" through the documentary's representation of Serbia and Eurovision 2008 held in Belgrade. In doing so, I will introduce the concept of leveraged pedagogy to describe the hegemonic and unequal relations between "West/Europe" (re-presenter) and "Central and Eastern Europe" (CEE) (re-presented). Leveraged pedagogy, in its simples, would be a strategy of distancing "West/Europe" from "CEE" buy projecting "homophobia" onto "CEE" countries as their innate feature, thus implicitly re-inscribing liberal individual values (as in "gay rights") into the core notion of the "Europe" and "EUropean Nationhood". At the same time, an indisputable acceptance of "Western solutions" is "offered" as a possibility of "redemption" for the "East". I will try to show how this mechanism works in the representation case of Eurovision 2008.

Delivered with Joanna Mizielinska.

Recently, we observe the proliferation of works about non-Western sexualities. However, queer studies by embracing these margins and outskirts, continues to focus on post-colonial regions, "forgetting" about the "neighbouring" Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In our presentation we will problematize the notion of "Western" sexuality and indicate its "con-temporal peripheries" – i.e. "othered" CEE, rendered as a "permanently transitional"/"post-communist" and "homophobic".

Until 1989 within Europe, we had at least two parallel temporalities of "Western capitalism" and "CEE communism". With the collapse of the state communism in most of the countries, Western narrative of capitalism and liberal democracy became The Same universal discourse. However, if for the "West", the "1989" was one of the events in the continuum of history - for the CEE, this was more dramatic a change, with temporality "knotting" and "looping" of time(s). We will look at historical accounts of LGBT activism in the CEE to exemplify this geo-temporal confusion and disjunctions or narrative. By contrasting them with the hegemonic accounts of the "Western" LGBT development, we will probe the geographical, political and cultural boundaries, and question transnational hegemonies of activism discourses, but also of academic knowledge production.

Delivered with Joanna Mizielinska.

Recently, we observe the proliferation of works about non-Western sexualities. However, queer studies by embracing these margins and outskirts, continues to focus on post-colonial regions, "forgetting" about the "neighbouring" Central and Eastern Europe. In our presentation, based on our edited book, we will problematize the notion of Western sexuality and indicate its "con-temporal peripheries" – i.e. mechanisms of "othering" CEE by rendering it as "permanently transitional"/"post-communist".

After 1989, without questioning, Western-style of politics was adopted across CEE. When LGBT activism emerged in the CEE, West was already at the 'queer' stage, with long history and plurality of forms of activism. Conversely, the communist past of CEE built different social structures and modalities. This could be represented as two separate geopolitical-temporal modalities running parallel, where in 1989 one of them finishes, and the other one becomes universal for both. Indeed, as we will demonstrate, it should be even more complicated, and represented as "knotting" and "looping" of time(s).

When in 1989 "the communist time" ended and the physical borders began to dismantle, the flow and exchange of material products and ideas really took over. The protuberance of clutching ideas, into which CEE was "thrown into", was far from linear and progressively accumulative vision of time, dominating "Western" reality. Sexual politics in CEE may serve as an example. The strong assimilationist model of activism present in CEE could be read as "stepping back in time" into "Western homophile times" of 1950s and 1960s. Yet this "going backward" is actually "stepping forward" for lesbian and gay activists in CEE, if only because they can self-organise, which was not possible before 1989. Additionally, these "homophile-like" claims of acceptance and assimilation may be attempted by "jumping into 1970s" and using some contestation strategies predominant at the time. At the same time, other groups may label themselves "queer" and draw directly on 1990s Queer Nation events, like "kiss-ins" in public spaces. However, what we have just presented is already an attempt at "untie the knot" and "linearise" the present "here and now" reality of CEE. It is done by categorising various activities and approaches as belonging to certain historical narrative. Thus organising the "knotted temporality of CEE" into familiar stages and inscribing it into particular history (here: into Western history of LGBTQ movements), we already simplify it in order to make sense of it. But do we actually succeed? Does such "unknotting" make sense? For whom? And what are the prerequisites to be able to understand it in either form? In other words, we feel it is important to ask, why certain models are familiar to "all"? And why "local" narrations of lesbian and gay emancipation will be seen as, precisely, "local" and not "universally" recognised?

We will undertake the task of questioning the power relations between "West" and "CEE", between western queer academic scholarship and CEE theoretical insights, calling for not only for "de-centralisation of queer theory", but also for greater attentiveness to spatial and temporal choices in doing so.

The idea of "sexual citizenship" gained much popularity in western democracies throughout the 1990s, together with the rise of "gay rights" discourses, and wider "human rights" frameworks of reference for social movements. The 1990s also witnessed intensive "democratisation" of post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), alongside exhaustive transnational networks of co-operation.

In this paper I consider the appropriateness and usability of the ideas of "sexual citizenship" and "gay rights" in the Polish, post-communist, newly capitalist and democratic, context. By looking at the origins and implied conditionality of the above concepts, I ponder how western-invented models fit the not-so-western-democratic-type reality of post-communist countries. I problematize these categories as (Western-) context dependent and ponder the (seemingly) unidirectional flow of knowledge-based activism from the "West" (metropolis) to "Central and Eastern Europe" (periphery). By doing so, I hope to shed some light on the formation of transnational power-knowledge-activism relations, within feminist and LGBT and Q exchanges.

By focusing on the epistemological arena of feminist and LGBT and Q struggles, and deployment of strategies, I problematize the im/possibilities of "originality" and "locality" of LGBT and Q activism.

Abstract: British and Polish Discourses About Homophobic Central and Eastern Europe.

In recent years, Poland and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in general have gained a noticeable attention in the UK gay community, mainly due to xenophobic and hostile attitudes of populist and nationalist parties springing in many former communist countries. Increasingly, we could observe the emergence of a specific discourse about CEE as homophobic. It was mainly influenced by bans of "gay prides" and, in some cases, violent attacks on the peaceful lesbian and gay protesters in some Polish, Latvian, Russian cities.

I would like to ponder about a troublesome idea of CEE and the process of erasing "difference" from its notion. "Central and Eastern Europe" is homogenised in these discourses, by, e.g. "forgetting" about "positive" (so to say) factors, like some form of same-sex partnerships' legal regulations introduced in some countries. During the presentation, I will discuss the problem of discursive construction of the CEE as 'homophobic' by the UK gay communities. Some probing questions inc.: Why CEE is treated as uniformly homophobic and any 'positive' differences are wiped out from it? What sort of power relations (between CEE and 'West') is being established in such portrayal of CEE? How can lesbian and gay communities of CEE profit of this discourse? How UK gay communities profit of it?

On the other hand, I am also interested in the CEE's and specifically Polish discourses. Popular lesbian and gay discourses seem to sustain the claim about homophobic Polish society and "Western Land of Freedom". But where exactly is "West"? What geographical areas are included/excluded? How do "West" relate to the "EU"?

2009 witnessed series of initiatives summarising 20 years of post-communism. Also Polish LGBT community commemorated this fact, as well as the 40 years of "gay liberation", in e.g. pride parade's slogan: "40 years of equality, 20 years of freedom". Pondering around the question of "History"/"history" I wonder what is the significance of those invocations? If history is a discursive field selectively created for the purpose of maintaining certain power relations and hierarchies, I would like to discuss – What sort of history Polish lesbian and gay communities create? Why evoking Stonewall? And why not Solidarity? What is the significance of 'remembering' and 'forgetting' in the creation of contemporary LGBT politics in Poland?

Abstract: En-Gendered Anxieties. Gendering lesbian and gay liberation in Poland.

In this presentation I want to look at Polish lesbian and gay liberation case and some of its fall-outs. For the reason of context and format (conference and presentation), I will restrict the time frame of the problems I will talk about to years 1997 - 2003. In 1997 I believe lesbian and gay community started to be more intensely present in public discourses (fact also connected to the opening of the EU enlargement negotiations), and 2003 for the reason of a significant shift in the mainstream discourses on homosexuality, achieved mainly thanks to the social campaign "Let Them See Us". (I will return to it at the end of the presentation). In the context of lesbian and gay liberation, I will focus in particular on attitudes towards gender norms in Polish society. My conclusion is that lesbian and gay community accepted rigid gender norms for the sake of a greater social acceptance of homosexuality. However, I will ask whether (homo)sexual liberation can sustain such a conservative deal? I suggest that as long as homosexual people do not realise that their emancipation is indeed (inter)dependent of gender norms – this must lead to even greater backlash, and quite opposite results then intended.