The focus of this session will be on collective and personal utopias, and how the hypothetical construction of idealised futures shapes the forms of affective relationships, love and pleasure. Refuting the pervaded queer pragmatism - fighting for legal rights such as same-sex marriage, gays in the military - we will embrace queer futurities by reading excerpts from “Cruising Utopia – the Then and There of Queer Futurity”, from José Esteban Muñoz.

“We must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.” - José Esteban Muñoz

We will also be looking into some of the work from Feel Tank Chicago and their rendering of emotions - depression, anxiety, rage, numbness, fear and many other - as not only part of the personal sphere, but politically induced (Depressed? It might be political).

“Can hopelessness be transformed? Is there anything useful about guilt? How might we collectivise our despair, and our joys? What’s YOUR utopia in need of a rescue?”

The reading material and videos we will present function as a starting point for further discussion. We would like to encourage and invite participants to bring and share ideas, inputs and material they find relevant to this discussion.

The XenoEntities Network assemblage is a research and discussion gathering, of free and open access, in which every participant can propose the debate of topics and ideas, present works and suggest future programs. We will have access to Internet and video projection while snacks will be provided by SPEKTRUM and there are drinks at the bar, which means we have everything we need to talk for a couple of hours.
Please join us!

Lou, Pedro and Rita