Finals week is almost over, hang in there! The Met Gala was surely something, but let’s save that discussion for later (aka this week’s Highlight).
Last Week
Another day, another Game Night slay! Thank you for being patient with us as we ensured it was on par with oSTEM standards. We loved being able to socialize with you competitively (via judgment/chameleon deceit) and cherished the unique atmosphere of a room full of queers (aka Fox News’s worst nightmare)!
Next Semester
Reminders
- Slack Group: Join Because we refuse to flood your inbox any more than we already have, we’ve made a Slack group that lets us share deadlines/updates sooner and let you in on behind-the-scenes gossip! Join to make sure you hear as soon as registration dates are announced (~June) for the 2023 National oSTEM Conference this Fall!
Note:I think I figured out Slack settings, so this link should not expire in 30 days, unlike the one shared in previous Newsletters. If not then oopsie! - Fall ‘23 GMM Availability: W2M
Please fill out the quick survey linked above to let us know your availability for next semester! The survey will be open through summer so you can update it if any changes arise, but please let us know what it is as of now. We want to accommodate as many members as we can when scheduling our regular Fall GMMs!
oSTEM
- Thrive Lifeline Internship: Applications close May 26, 2023
THRIVE Lifeline is looking for undergraduate STEM students for their Crisis Responder Internship Program. Positions are fully remote and span for 12 months starting August 2023, find more details here. - AAPI Heritage Month Panel: Register
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Join our oSTEM National in celebrating the rich history, cultural diversity, and contributions of the AAPI community. These identity-based panels are a unique way to bring together both students and professionals for an intimate conversation. The panel will be on May 25th from 8-9 PM EDT and open to all to talk about navigating these dual identities in STEM and the way that interacts with other identities and shapes the way we experience the world. - Lavender Graduation + Beyond Graduation Event: Ceremony form due May 6, 2023
Congratulations Class of 2023 members! This year, our national organization will host the fourth annual oSTEM Lavender Graduation Ceremony on May 20, 2023, at 5:00 PM EDT. They will be honoring you (graduated from undergraduate and graduate programs) with a virtual graduation "walk," as well as providing opportunities for discussion and networking and a small token of acknowledgment. Please complete this form if you are a graduate who would like to participate in the ceremony or a community member who wishes to attend and show support. If you are a graduate and wish to receive your gift, the form must be completed by May 6, 2023.
Join oSTEM’s Beyond Graduation event to learn more about the many opportunities oSTEM has beyond your undergraduate experience. Whether your next step is grad school or a career, we have professional events, networking opportunities, volunteering, and more! Join them next Tuesday, May 9th, at 1 pm EDT with our Director of Student Membership, Avery Cunningham, or at 8 PM EDT with our Director of Professional Membership, Adam Blackburn (or both).
University
- The BIC’s One Community Program: Speaker applications due by May 12, 2023
The Paul J. Burgett Intercultural Center is seeking undergraduate panelists for this year’s One Community Program held during Welcome Week for incoming first-year and transfer students on Thursday, August 24. If you have a story to share about how you self-identify, the intersections of your identity, or how your various identities have had an impact on your college experience, apply here by Friday, May 12. Email bic@rochester.edu if you have any questions. - Summer Philosophy 101
Becca Sanaeikia, who specializes in bioethics and trans philosophy, asked us to share this unique opportunity to take PHIL 101: Intro to Philosophy with her over the summer. The course delves into applied ethics, clinical contexts/queer bioethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind/AI. It is being offered from June 26 to July 21, 2:30 PM - 5 PM every day from Monday through Thursday. The course is a nice way to get started in the vast field of philosophy with a queer instructor who will teach the class affirming your needs and your interests!
Outside
- Data Science in Oceanography Summer Program: Applications due by June 1, 2023
University of Washington’s School of Oceanography is accepting applications for their Data Science in Oceanography Program open to undergraduate students interested in hands-on experience with research projects revolving around oceanographic data analysis. The program is scheduled from August 7-18 and will include faculty & graduate student mentorships and fun outdoor activities in the Seattle area. Underrepresented students in STEM (aka you!) are encouraged to apply, learn more here. - EERE STEM Policy Internships: Applications due July 15, 2023 @ 11:59 pm
The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Science, Technology and Policy (STP) Program offers educational and professional development to scientists and engineers interested in energy efficiency and renewable energy policy. The EERE STP Program provides an opportunity for graduate students to participate in policy-related projects at DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in Washington, D.C. and Golden, CO site office. - SERC’s Fall Internships: Fall Projects due by June 1, 2023
The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s (SERC) Internship Program offers undergraduate and beginning graduate students hands-on experience in the fields of environmental research and public engagement. Under a SERC mentor's direction, students will work on independent research projects, go on experiential field trips, and network with outside speakers. Currently, only Fall Internship Projects are available, read more here, and here’s a walkthrough on how to apply (since one of their links needs updating).
The Trans Formations Project continues to be an invaluable resource for political literacy and facilitating advocacy as the legislative assault on trans people grows in power. Part of compiling Resources & Opportunities (scholarships, conferences, etc.) as an organization for LGBTQ+ students involves ensuring access to health resources. Thanks to the TFP’s grassroots work, we’ve added a page dedicated to them in our R&Os which includes a breakdown of their legislative coverage and lists LGBTQ+ crisis lifelines available to you.
Our website is regularly updated, if you spot any issues or know of an R&O we haven’t included, our Feedback Form is always open!
Performing Gender (Part II): The Politics and Poetics of Camp
“It can be engaged directly by the queer to produce social visibility in the praxis of everyday life, or it can be manifested as the camp trace by the un-queer in order, as I will argue, to provide queer access to the apparatus of representation.”
- Moe Meyer, The Politics and Poetics of Camp
In our last Performing Gender Highlight, we evaluated the utility of performance drag and its employment of gender subversion through Sex, Drag, and Male Roles: Investigating Gender as Performance by Diane Torr and Stephen Bottoms. Their work helps emphasize the normalized theatricality of gender dynamics that drag trivializes through exaggeration. This clever mocking of dominant norms & values through irony, humor, and excess takes inspiration from camp, which was also pioneered by queer individuals.
Author, Moe Meyer reraises camp in his book The Politics and Poetics of Camp and calls out Susan Sontag’s sanitization misrepresentation of it in her Notes on Camp. Sontag’s overgeneralized interpretation of camp as just an esoteric form of expression intensionally worked to erase its history as a queer survival coping strategy in the midst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic decimating queer populations.
Through contextualizing camp’s roots, Meyer critiques Sontag’s positioning of it as an aesthetic easily adaptable by anyone and instead describes camp as “the total body of performative practices and strategies used to enact a queer identity, with enactment defined as the production of social visibility.” Here, Meyer uses “queer” to refer to the opposition to “the depth model of identity” purposefully not treating it as a subculture, but instead, as the process in which non-normative sexual identities are culturally constructed.
The Met Gala’s 2019 poor execution of camp perfectly exemplifies the consequences of Sontag’s sanitization. I won’t take specific stances on those who attended it, however, Karlie Kloss was the definition of camp and Katy Perry wishes. As it stands, The Met could never properly execute a theme that fundamentally challenges dominant norms because it is the dominant norm. Queer failure and misuse of intended purpose is a label familiar to those who pioneered these subversive notions, explaining its amplified reach by its accessibility and its misrepresentation by ignorant simplicity. (Re: Halberstam’sThe Queer Art of Failure + Ahmed’sWhat’s the Use?).
Meyer’s specification of camp’s non-normative audience avoids secluding its utility to only LGBTQ+ individuals, resulting in Sontag’s esoteric applications. Just like performance drag, camp enlarges the conversation around queer (non-normative) expressions’ political utility, application, and dominant permutation by everyone. Except for Katy Perry.
Have a safe summer!! <3
FORM
oSTEM General Feedback Form
This is oSTEM's main form for you to submit any comments, questions, suggestions, opportunity submissions, and/or feedback. You can choose to submit anonymously (CCC may ask you to log in, but that's just to ensure it's from a UR student, not a random internet person) or share your name/email.
If you run into any issues with the form, please email us at uofr.ostem@gmail.com so we can fix it right away.
