Pride season is summatime, the season of short shorts and no more teachers, dirty looks. But colleges and universities love a queer too, so they start the season off early. And PSU’s week of LGBT Pride starts tomorrow with Dawn of the Day of the Living Queer. It has quite the lineup, (including li’l ol’ me with a tiny pile of last year’s stickers). It’s supposed to be a sunny and beautiful day in the park blocks from 4-9p as Tender Forever, play/start, NO/HO/MO and more take the stage.
I just recently saw Tender Forever, aka Melanie Valera, kill it at Saratoga. With a new album and all over her emo-electro charisma, Valera is sincere and swoon-worthy. Even I was charmed by her slight French accent as she convinced the audience to catch her crowd surfing. And I did see someone filming my favorite performance trick of hers, controlling the beats with a pair of WiiMotes, but they disappeared before I could commandeer the recording for the site. (But I have another chance, and with better light!)
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The interdisciplinary academic arena that is Women’s Studies, Gender Studies or Sexuality Studies is one that is rife with opposing opinions. Indeed, that is one of its great strengths and great frustrations. I attended Smith College in the early aughts and what to call this specific department was contonually under debate, even though the decision to keep it Women’s Studies (because we had to keep the “We study women in a major way” button tradition alive..) and to focus on spotlighting the “fairer sex” had already been “decided.”