Graduate Student Colloquium with Juan Ariel Gómez (Hispanic Studies) and Tugce Ellialti (Sociology)

Monday, December 2, 2013 - 8:30am

Please join us in Cohen 436 for the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies (GSWS) Graduate Student Colloquium on Monday, December 2, from 12pm-1:30 pm with presentations from Juan Ariel Gómez (Hispanic Studies) and Tugce Ellialti (Sociology).  

 

Juan Ariel Gómez (Hispanic Studies)

 “Transvestite Temporalities and Latin American Fiction: Some Preliminary Remarks” 

In this brief session I examine recent fictional accounts of transvestite subjectivities in relation to questions about temporality. Published in Argentina within the last five years, the novels, chronicles, and short fiction selected for one of my dissertation chapters evince a twofold temporal concern: narrative (or narratological) and subjective. I seek to discuss notions of queer temporalities as they are rearticulated in these different genres and voices by underscoring the ways in which narration depends on and reenacts temporal aspects in a diverse array of strategies, in particular the restoration of individual transvestite experiences in a genealogy (literary and critical) that has oftentimes rendered them as figural artifacts.

 

 

Tugce Ellialti (Sociology)

 “‘Finding the Truth:’ Forensic Reports and the Medico-legal Discourse on Sexual Violence in Turkey” 

In my dissertation research, I examine the institutional management of sexual violence cases in the wake of the recent reforms in civil and penal codes in Turkey. Instigated by the increasing visibility of sexual violence against women and how it is represented in public and political discourses on the one hand, and the general disappointment with the implementation of the new legal regulations on the other, this study investigates how sexual violence cases are handled by law enforcement officials, prosecutor offices, courts, and forensic medicine institutions. In my field research, I have done ethnographic observations in courts, in-depth interviews with prosecutors, judges, and lawyers, and archival research on case documents and legal texts. In my presentation, I will specifically focus on the forensic medicine institution, which has become an important institutional component of the judicial processes of sexual violence cases with the recent legal reforms. I will mainly address the following questions: How do state institutions construct, mobilize, and reproduce the medico-legal discourses and practices regarding sexual violence in the midst of social change? Why and in what ways the forensics has become a crucial part of sexual violence cases? What is the place and major function of forensic reports in the legal processing of these cases? How are these reports produced and what kinds of discourses of gender, sexuality, and violence underpin them? What are the legal and otherwise implications of the use of forensic reports as evidence in sexual assault cases for female survivors? These are crucial questions to consider as the particular types and forms of information that are produced and used as evidence for “what really happened” in these cases are central to our understanding of the administration of law in society in general, and, of how state institutions approach and manage issues of justice, equality, and violence against women in particular.

This monthly interdisciplinary colloquium is open to graduate students working on all things women, gender, queer and sexuality studies. It allows graduate students to workshop parts of chapters, articles, essays, or practice conference papers and presentations. Please join us and participate in the discussion, and consider presenting your work at future colloquia! Many students have found this to be a friendly space to get feedback on their research. Email smourad@asc.upenn.edu if you are interested. 

 

Lunch will be served, so please RSVP to smourad@asc.upenn.edu by Friday, November 29.