Natálie Kubíková, “Weirdos Attract Weirdos”, lecture
14 November 2023, 18:00 – 21:00
BERLIN, S&T RESICENCY, ARCHIVE
“Weirdos Attract Weirdos: The contemporary appropriation of female queer slurring and its historical controversy”.
Did queer women adopted verbal slurs and made them into terms outside the binary language? What are the possible co-optations of female queer linguistic slang in the present? Can we find any etymological development of today's swear words as possible relevant terms of the slang nowadays? Vulva, bull and hermaphrodite: The etymology of DYKE slur in the optics of the present. Updating today's female queer slang's vocabulary.
Words steal or give power. If words hurt, words also heal. We couldn't help but notice a certain ambivalence that lesbian labels carry for different "types". How have we dealt with the adoption of name-calling, and do adopted slurs help us regain power and control? And what is there to control at all? The etymological development of today's swear words and the possible addition of words that would fit into contemporary lesbian discourse. Faggot, tranny, dyke, stud: The reclaiming of the phenomenon of lesbian and queer slang as a metaphor for the maintaining of a community of queer women in Paris.
Drawing by Ella C Bernard.