We've been working on having some sort of mission statement as a way of demarcating and outlining our purpose as a way of giving us structure to work from.
So first off, we have Heather's original mission statment from a few months back. (which yes, I did have to dig through months and months of lj archives.)
We’re going to be looking at feminist poetry, how it has evolved alongside post modern studies of identity, and how that in turn complicates its usefulness as activism. It’s also going to touch on the presence of radical lesbian feminist poets as theorists in the ‘second wave’ and their comparative absence in 'third wave’ feminism / queer theory. What does it mean that our poets are no longer some of the dominant theorists? How does that impact theory / our identity as a movement? etc. We’ll probably have to narrow the scope of this project when it comes time to write our paper / (symposium?), but this is where we’re begining.
Now we have a more refined one that we've been working on this very morning.... (Mostly of Heather's Creation) > This special project will examine selections of lesbian-feminist poetry from the ‘second wave’ to the ‘third wave’ / era of queer theory. We will examine how lesbian-feminist/ queer poetry has evolved (or in some cases, refused to evolve) alongside postmodern theories of identity, and how that in turn complicates its relationship to activism. What does it mean when our poets are no longer some of our dominant theorists? How does that impact theory / our identity as a movement?
Finally I took a hack it, and got this: > The rising popularity of postmodern identity theories within the feminist/queer movement, primarily in the academy, has had a profound impact on the ways in which poets align their work with identity categories. In that direction we are interested the deveoplment of "queerness" as a category in tension with iconic kind of lesbian-feminist. These questions force us to examine how feminist and queer oriented identity poetry has moved out of the academy, and ways that identity alignment is both reject and remains a driving framework for feminist and queer theory and poetry.
Then Heather (who came in to my room to use my long mirror, but I'll pretend it was for the discussion) was like "great, but you know being historically prescriptive without actually researching it, isn't really A GoodThing(tm), and I thought she had a really good point, so I'm going to change it some more: > The rising popularity of postmodern identity theories within the feminist/queer movement, primarily in the academy, has had a profound impact on the ways in which poets align their work with identity categories. In that direction we are interested in determining if the deveoplment of "queerness" as a category is actually in tension with the lesbian-feminist poet/theorist who has reached a semi iconic status within feminist and queer 'political' movements. Specifically, we seek to unpack the disavowal of identity alignment in contemporary poetry, complicate its rejection and see if and how identity alignment remains a driving framework for contemporary feminist and queer theory and poetry.
Now admittedly, I'm still a bit proscriptive here, but leave it too open, means it's hard to get a good structure, and I think generally we know what's going on, right now we need to having something to work with; it can always change later
Cheers, sam