Partecipanti: Daniele Salerno
La conferenza del dott. Daniele Salerno è aperta a tutti e tutte e si terrà in inglese nell'ambito del corso di Gender Studies.
The talk will present the Marie Sklodowska-Curie project “Cultural Memory in LGBT Activism for Rights-MEMORIGHTS” based at University of Utrecht (prof. Ann Rigney) in collaboration with the University of Buenos Aires (prof. Emilio Crenzel). As the history of the Holocaust and of post-dictatorship transitions teaches us, after or during gross rights violations discriminated social groups may be disempowered in their capacity to speak and be heard. Historical injustices are perpetuated by discursive injustice where people face a systematic inability to narrate, claim rights and “do things with words” (e.g. bearing witness on past violence, asking for recognition, justice and rights), in a failure of agency that strengthens social disadvantage.
Since the Stonewall riots in New York (1969) and the marches organized to mark its anniversary, LGBT people have incorporated cultural memory in activism in order to reconstruct the semiotic condition for speaking and being heard. MEMORIGHTS addresses three research questions: how do commemorations work as socio-semiotic settings for rights claims? What is the role of the Archive in activist struggles for rights? How do memorial spaces work as social settings for activism?