| URI Symposium Talk |
 URI Symposium Talk
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Mar. 29th, 2008 @ 08:12 am 
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The "big winter storm" hoped for by the TV newsmen turned out much milder than predicted, so the drive was rainy but smooth. About 15 or so in the audience, a better turnout than in years previous.
Andrew Winters, the main Symposium coordinator, was sweet in introducing me: "I can hardly imagine having a Symposium without Ron." In opening I thanked him for inviting me, saying I could hardly imagine not participating.
My part went well, I think, considering it was quite a departure from what I planned. I changed my presentation several days ago from doing a Powerpoint thingie utilizing some of the many images I generated for the Journal. With the laptop crashing regularly and awaiting a major repair (as soon as I can get it to the Apple Store), I couldn't risk trying to use that machine to put it together, though I am considering putting something together for release on YouTube or something.
I passed out copies of the Edge NY article, which conveniently included a Kinsey Scale chart. I read, with plenty of interpolations, from three selections to be published in the Journal: my "Publication and Translations" paper, the first paper by Dodge/Reece/Gebhard, and Mike Szymanski's piece on Kinsey the movie - the fun part where he "outs" Laura Linney as bi by asking her assessment of herself on the Kinsey Scale.
Andrew had asked me just before my presentation started if I could try to work in some briefmention of the other proposal I submitted, which apparently caused some consternation among the Symposium group. Later Andrew mentioned some of the considerations (mostly irrational fears) that came up in their assessment of the second proposal, and they ended up just taking my Kinsey @ 60 proposal, which was fine by me. I certainly never would have made time to prepare two whole presentations without driving myself bonkers.
The presentation proposal they rejected was on the delicate topic of the seated President's bisexuality, and the conspiracy to silence the story about his extensive homosexual experience and bisexual background, titled "The Bi-ness of King George." This seven minutes, delivered after I wrapped up the Kinsey presentation on time, probably turned out to be the most interesting and engaging part of the 55 minutes I spoke.
I managed to get out most of salient points about the story: bi-dar, cheerleading, the "tells" in the biographies, Dr. F, Jeff, Karl, Leola, Victor. I even mentioned Kenji Yoshino's thesis "The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure" and how it applies here: we don't see Georgie's bisexuality because we have no idea what male bisexuality looks like - but way too soon I saw Andrew giving me the "time's up" sign, and closed promptly with a plug for "Bu$h's horrible BF."
I wonder what the presentation evaluations they handed out to everyone will say.
I was relieved to have this behind me - considering some of the sour odor still lingering about 10ICB not happening at URI this year. Not that Andrew or anyone said anything about it yesterday, but I couldn't help but consider the opportunity I offered the bisexual community, and wonder why hardly anyone supported it. What more/different could I have done? At this point, it's irrelevant.
The sky was considerably clearer when I left campus and headed southwest, and on the drive home I enjoyed the use of the rest stop on I-95, admittedly for its "intended purpose."Current Music: Song for Adam - J. Browne |
...the delicate topic of the President's bisexuality.
Hmmm, I can't imagine why that would be delicate. ;)
I've been spending some time looking around your web site, and as you can imagine I'm learning a lot.
Thanks! Glad you're reading!
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