Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies Colloquium

The University of Toronto, October 18, 2014

 

Gender and sexuality are two of the critical organizing axes of contemporary life. Alongside and intersecting with race, class, nation, and others, they constitute the ways through which we make ourselves known to ourselves and to one another: as men, women, or one of the 58 new gender options offered by Facebook, and as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, and all the other varied and ever-changing linguistic markers of preferences of physical and emotional intimacy. Just as legal studies, the hard and social sciences, philosophy and literature, information studies is a discourse called to respond to the challenges posed by critical perspectives on gender and sexuality. Perhaps more than any other discipline, information studies confronts the theoretical with the material. How do both the “the archive” and the archive organize, and how are they organized by, gender and sexuality? From the collections we build to the access tools we design to the histories we collect, catalog, and preserve, information studies theorists and practitioners are always engaged in the projects of making and being made.

We will extend these conversations during a one-day colloquium to be held at the University of Toronto on October 18, 2014. Presentations will consist of individual papers organized around themes that emerge from the submissions.

Thanks to the University of Toronto Faculty of Information for generously hosting this colloquium.