Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the SEM 2026 Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
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Click on the session name for a detailed view (with participant names and abstracts).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 29th Aug 2026, 08:47:13pm EDT
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Daily Overview |
| Session | |
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06E: Queer Frequencies: Sound, Space, and the Making of Alternative Communities Location: Walnut | |
| Presentation 3 | |
Kesha Cruises Atopia: Queer Community in International Waters Harvard University This paper explores the cultural contradictions of music festival cruises aimed at fostering community despite participation in the destructive forces of capitalism, climate catastrophe, and violence against women and children globally. I focus on a 2019 cruise hosted by Kesha for her largely queer fanbase that curated an aesthetic space physically removed from heteronormative society through an all-hours party atmosphere. I frame this as an atopic “non-space” (Augé, 1992) where attendees felt protected from such sociocultural structures in international waters; yet the very same structures take advantage of international waters to avoid accountability as the cruising industry wreaks havoc on the environment and reproduces violent, ongoing histories of colonialism. This paper engages online communities as archive and ethnographic field, blending methodological approaches to explore the potential of social media as a fruitful scholarly resource. Working from theorists including Jill Dolan, Amy Hollywood, and José Esteban Muñoz, I question the extent to which a population alienated by society holds themselves accountable for contributing to environmental damages (air, water, and noise pollution) and the exploitation of other vulnerable populations (underpaid employees from the global south, and women and children guests subject to violence with little recourse). In an atopia designed to protect community from structural marginalization, how do we reconcile such benefits with the detrimental impact on the world at large? | |
