Description:

"From Queer Counterpublics to Queer Encountering: Counterpublic Health in Digital Times”
Keynote address by Kane Race, University of Sydney

Queer counterpublics have been seen as a significant resource for gay men’s HIV prevention, but this literature tends to characterise digitally-arranged sex as ipso facto privatising. In this talk, I draw on range of empirical examples to demonstrate how digitally-arranged sex frequently exceeds this framing. I argue that a topological (rather than topographical) conception of queer counterpublics might emerge if digital devices are conceived as part of the infrastructure of sexual events.

This is the keynote address for SPAN's 2017 Annual Workshop, Stigma: Deviance, Criminality, and Sexualities. Panels will follow the next day.