When Mary Becomes Frank: Queer Gender at Ellis Island and the Politics of

THE UNIVERSITY LECTURE SERIES presents...
Wednesday, November 30 4:30pm
College of Fine Arts, Room 303

ERICA RAND
Professor of Art and Visual Culture and Chair of Women and Gender Studies
at Bates College

When Mary Becomes Frank: Queer Gender at Ellis Island and the Politics of Peopling the Past

When Frank Woodhull showed up at Ellis Island in 1908, he was forced to admit to immigration inspectors that his body matched his first name, Mary Johnson. This talk works from the case of Frank Woodhull to consider the politics of gender policing, informed by matters of race, nationality, and economic status, in practice, in pictures, and in history-making.

Erica Rand is a professor of Art and Visual Culture and chair of Women and Gender Studies at Bates College. Her work includes Barbie’s Queer Accessories (1995), essays on gender coercion and activist visuals, and collaborative projects on sex and censorship, on teaching about consumption, and on anti-racist classroom practices. Her new book, The Ellis Island Snow Globe (Duke University Press) was published in September 2005. She serves on the editorial board of the journal Radical Teacher. Among other works in progress, she is currently working on two projects with artists?Queer Plymouth, with Deborah Bright, and Formula of Desire, with Elizabeth Stephens.