Lecture series "The construction of gender, beyond binarity".

Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera is a Ugandan LGBT rights activist. She is the founder and executive director of an LGBT rights organization called Freedom & Roam Uganda (FARUG), and in 2011 received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders

Initiated and carried by professors in Inalco's "Genres et sexualités dans le monde" course, this lecture series, open to all, is proposed by the Inalco Foundation, with the support of the Rothschild Foundation. It also takes the form of a doctoral seminar, validated by Inalco master's students, and may be validated as part of compulsory doctoral training. It brings together gender specialists from a wide variety of cultural areas, to enrich and extend the reflection begun in the "Gender and Sexuality in the World" degree course.

The lectures will take place in the auditorium of the Pôle des langues et civilisations (PLC) from 6pm to 8pm at 65 rue des Grands Moulins, 75013 Paris. Registration is required for each lecture.
The talks will also be available to listen to on various podcast platforms. Click here to subscribe to the podcast and listen to the lectures of the 2022-2023 cycle.

Validation procedures for Inalco master's students

• assiduity ;
• participation in the preparation sessions preceding each lecture ;
• oral presentation around a lecture chosen during the scoping session, and presented during the preparation session. This presentation will be due in writing.

Programme for cycle 2023-2024 - The construction of gender, beyond binarity

Gender binarity is based on a distinction between male and female, theorized with the rise of biology as a discipline in the 19th century. It provided a scientific basis for the normalization of gender difference and consolidated social discourses and practices marked by a hierarchy between the two sexes, whether in the realms of family, politics, work or language.

Today, this binary hegemonic vision is regularly challenged by "minority" populations (sexual, ethnic) or, on the contrary, internalized, even claimed by these minority populations who seek to achieve equality in the name of difference. Thus, essentialist currents have been able to rely on physical "feminine specificities" such as motherhood, or moral ones such as the maternal instinct, in order to consolidate this binarity, while other currents are actively seeking to break out of this binary schema, as we can see in LGBTQIA+ currents.

Starting from this ground, we will propose interventions that will shed a different light on this essentially Western-centric epistemological construct, incorporating varied historical and cultural perceptions on several continents.

Organization: Elisa Carandina, Nathalie Carré, Mériam Cheikh, Isabelle Konuma, Alexandre Toumarkine
Coordination: Elisa Carandina

Programme of lectures and preparatory sessions

October 25, 2023

Conference Ekifire - the half-dead. On the forced invisibility of LGBTQ minorities in Great Lakes Africa
18h-20h, auditorium

Preparatory session
16h30-17h30, room 3.15

Presentation by Frédéric Noy, French documentary photographer and photojournalist living in India. He has been working for 7 years on the LGBTQ community in East Africa (Great Lakes region) and is the author of a book and photo exhibition entitled Ekifire.

Organized by Nathalie Carré

November 9, 2023

Conference La binarité du sexe dans le droit constitutionnel au Japon : vers l'indifférence ou la redéfinition?
18h-20h, auditorium

Séance préparatoire
17h-18h, salle 3.03

Intervention by Saitô Emiko, independent researcher, journalist. Specialist in Japanese constitutional law, feminist movements and LGBT movements.

Organized by Isabelle Konuma

December 11, 2023

Conference Queer performances on stage. Un regard extra-européen
18h-20h, auditorium

Preparatory session
17h-18h
room 4.18

Intervention by Zeynep Uğur, politician, (CESPRA- EHESS), director of the Istanbul Fringe International Performing Arts Festival

Organized by Alexandre Toumarkine

Deferred to a later date

Conference The Tunisian LGBT/queer movement and the contestation of gender binarity
6-8pm, auditorium

Intervention by Abir Kréfa, sociologist, lecturer at Université Lumière Lyon 2. She is the author of "Genre et féminisme au Moyen Orient" and works on the LGBTQ community in Tunisia.

Organized by Mériam Cheikh

March 6, 2024

Conference Sexual difference in modern Islamic discourse: glimpses from contentious debates (1950s-2000s)
6-8pm, auditorium

Intervention by Bettina Dennerlein, Professor of Gender Studies and Islamic Studies at the University of Zurich, specialist in Gender, Religion and Law (particularly Islamic).

Organized by Mériam Cheikh

March 11, 2024

Conference Parcours transgenres dans la France du XIXe siècle
18h-20h, auditorium

Gabrielle Houbre, historian at Université Paris Cité, specialist in intersex in the 19th century.

Organized by Isabelle Konuma

April 3, 2024

Conference A History Without Binaries? Queer and Trans Histories of Gender Transgression in Argentina
6-8pm, auditorium

Intervention by Patricio Simonetto, specialist in the history of trans-body in Argentina at Leeds Unisversity.

Organized by Elisa Carandina

May 2, 2024

Conference Coccinellim: A History of the Israeli Transgender Community from the 1950s to the Present Day
6-8pm, auditorium

Intervention by Iris Rachamimov, Specialist in LGBT+ history in Israel.

Organized by Elisa Carandina

About the Fondation Rothschild - Institut Alain de Rothschild

Chaired by Eric de Rothschild, the Fondation Rothschild - Institut Alain de Rothschild provides financial, material and moral support to around a hundred projects a year in all areas of general interest. In a society weakened by inequality, its many philanthropic initiatives are particularly focused on culture, education, the environment and healthcare. The company stands out for its ability to take action on major social issues. Its two main areas of action are the fight against racism and anti-Semitism, and solidarity with the most vulnerable. For the Fondation Rothschild - Institut Alain de Rothschild, the partnership with Inalco and the Fondation Inalco represents a first opportunity to work with a national academic institution on the major societal issue of studying parity and gender.

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