Colloquium: Japonica Brown-Saracino, Boston University

Dyke Bars Never Last’: Gentrification, Critical Nostalgia and the Commemoration of Lost Dyke Bars in Four Cities

Abstract:

Drawing on data from a four-city ethnography, the talk explores why we remember and mourn dyke bars today, as well as why commemorators who are too young to have attended dyke bars nonetheless engage in commemorative efforts.  It demonstrates how contemporary LBQT+ activists grapple with the legacy of identity politics that they inherit, and how an urban process – gentrification – serves as a crucial resource for commemorators’ efforts to regenerate community.