EVENT Nov 20
ABSTRACT May 15
Abstract days left 2
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Queer Palimpsests at PAMLA 2025 in San Francisco

Categories: Postcolonial, American, Hispanic & Latino, Comparative, Interdisciplinary, French, British, German, Popular Culture, Gender & Sexuality, Women's Studies, World Literatures, African-American, Colonial, Revolution & Early National, Transcendentalists, 1865-1914, 20th & 21st Century, Medieval, Early Modern & Renaissance, Long 18th Century, Romantics, Victorian, 20th & 21st Century, Aesthetics, Anthropology/Sociology, Classical Studies, Cultural Studies, Environmental Studies, Film, TV, & Media, Food Studies, History, Philosophy, African & African Diasporas, Asian & Asian Diasporas, Australian Literature, Canadian Literature, Caribbean & Caribbean Diasporas, Indian Subcontinent, Eastern European, Mediterranean, Middle East, Native American, Scandinavian, Pacific Literature
Event Date: 2025-11-20 to 2025-11-23 Abstract Due: 2025-05-15

Queer palimpsests are texts from which queerness has been erased – but only on the surface. Scholars, therefore, are invited to reinvestigate these texts and their underlying queerness. This project includes books, movies, songs, fashion, artifacts, architecture, archives… a queer excavation in order to indicate the traces, specters, echoes, or presences of the past that remain even as many past narrative elements, structures, or tropes are forgotten.


“Palimpsest,” a transliteration of the Greek word παλ?μψηστος (palimpsestos), literally means “re-scraped.” In the ancient world, a piece of parchment would be re-scraped for further use, but often traces of original text would be left behind. A queer palimpsest, then, might be a text from which queerness has been erased – but never completely. Scholars, therefore, have reinvestigated and reimagined those texts, excavating their underlying queerness. Needless to say, such a project is far from finished, can probably never be finished. Books, movies, songs, fashion, artifacts, architecture, archives… continue to reveal their palimpsestic secrets, and what better place to share that research than in San Francisco, a city rebuilt after earthquakes, a city obliterated by the AIDS crisis, a city re-scraped by millions of minorities? I welcome proposals on any aspect of queer palimpsests, ranging from the classical past to queer futurity, from Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest: A Memoir to Charles A. Fracchia’s Palimpsest: A Man’s Life in San Francisco, from oblivion to memory.

Submission portal: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19448

nikolai.endres@wku.edu

Nikolai Endres