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Budapest W6: Nationalism, Gender, Sexuality - Class Notes


Nationalism and Homophobia - the postsocialist case


Homosexuality in the national politics of postsocialist Eastern Europe

Agency, relationships between inclusion/exclusion of national communities

Homophobia becomes politicised as a tool of boundary drawing

Kinship/affiliation - gender/sexuality, reproductivity, violence - how do these organise 'who belongs' and 'who does not belong'

Disaffiliation - determining who belongs to the nation - who belongs to Europe, what does Europe mean and represent

Relationships between sexual and national borders, personal being and national, community being

What is the difference between how women and gay people relate to the nation?

Homophobia - a problem in a particular place, symbols and public discourse, concrete spaces and practices

Hungarian homophobic discourse - With every gay person we lose a potential husband/wife, linking to the discourse of nationalism and reproduction

 EU and Western rhetoric about homophobia is diminutive and superior - excluding and creating particular problems 

 - How would Renkin's analysis work outside of Europe in the framework of a decolonial project?
- To what extent does homophobia from public figures enable more open homophobia?
- Can the two worlds of 'EU homogenisation' and 'national traditional' be reconciled? 
- Is homophobia about queer people or not?

 Orban - we are the REAL Europe: non-tolerant, Christian, pre-enlightenment. But also EASTERN - building links to Turkey and East 

 Notion of space - how do you queer space? Making queer people visible, how do the meanings of the public space change, and how do people relate to these spaces?

 Intersection of gender/race/class/sexuality - slipperiness between gays and jews (Other as blurring boundary of the nation) - the form of homophobia has changed to become more violent, more venomous

 Woman as lesbian - less threat due to legibility being different to that of gay men - how do lesbians satisfy the male gaze? If a lesbian is presenting as masc, she will disturb the male gaze and disrupt the sexual pleasure of the man. 

 Sexuality used to set up boundaries between places/regions/time - are Hungarians gay in the same way? Are they trying to set up a transnational affiliation between them and the gays across the world?

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