<< Previous Presenter | Next Presenter >>

Rahne Alexander

Citizen Rahne Alexander is a musician & comic performance artist from Baltimore. She is a member of Baltimore's revolutionary queer cabaret, the Charm City Kitty Club, which received a Lesbian Theater Award in 2004 from Curve Magazine. Citizen Rahne has appeared at events from coast to coast, including Baltimore Pride, Gender Crash, Dark Odyssey and Trans-Unity. This is the second consecutive year that Citizen Rahne will present at Dark Odyssey.

2005 has already been a very productive year for Citizen Rahne. She recorded and released her debut CD, Blonde On A Bum Trip. She collaborated on a multimedia performance with media artist Kristen Anchor for the 2005 Transmodern Age performance art festival, and she went on tour of the Mid-Atlantic region with the Tranny Roadshow. Her new garage party band, the Degenerettes, has also surfaced in Baltimore's underground.

Citizen Rahne is the author of Tranzilla, a serial zine comic book about a disaffected trannygirl whose rage and tainted hormones turn her into a fire-breathing reptile. The long-awaited fourth issue of Tranzilla is due out in Summer 2005. Her writing has appeared in Radar Review, Scarlet Letters, Baltimore Gay Life, and Manifesto. In 2002, she was interviewed about her activist history for the UC Santa Cruz oral history project Out In The Redwoods.

---

Philosophy In The Bedroom
Structure:
This workshop will begin with a presentation highlighting some of the moments in Western intellectual and sexual history where significant insight or change was revealed. Tracing through the works of de Sade, Sacher-Masoch, Freud, Foucault, and various feminist and LGBT scholars, writers and activists on up through Eve Sedgwick, Kate Bornstein and Tristan Taormino, we will take a look at the history of sexuality and identity with an interest in finding out how we ended up here, now, at Dark Odyssey 2005.

A roundtable discussion will follow this presentation, and participants will be encouraged to share their own favorite revolutionary moments in evolving towards a healthy sexuality these should include favorite texts, passages, mottoes and authors. The hope for this workshop is to provide a place where an open exchange of ideas which have changed us significantly, and helped us to become more happy and healthy sexual and sensual persons.

Background:
During the time of the French Revolution, the Marquis de Sade began to write extensively on human politics, paying particular attention to what went on the bedroom. His work was deemed obscene, and he wound up in jail.

Since that time, thinkers and writers have challenged existing systems of desire and sexual politics from nearly every angle -- feminists, LGBT activists, gender outlaws and BDSM practitioners being several of the groups which have made great strides in this systemic change. But even as these groups gaining visibility and power, there are more areas which can be addressed. In fact, it seems like the argument could be made that as more of us find power in our sexual politics, more issues come to the surface that were previously hidden, ignored and dismissed.

While it is no hidden secret that our sexual and sensual activities (i.e., the things we do "in the bedroom") are somehow linked to larger ideas and principles. BDSM practices, for instance, tend to gain momentum from the exchange of power, and those of us who are familiar with the work of Michel Foucault know that his philosophical work deals a lot with these ideas of the ways power is exchanged.

In short, when we go "into the bedroom," we arrive with a whole set of ideas, principles and desires. But where did these ideas, principles and desires come from? What do we do with all these ideas when we are in the bedroom? And perhaps most importantly what happens if and when we change our minds?

This will be part presentation and part roundtable discussion. In order to avoid this becoming a lecture or following a "reading group" format, the presentation will touch on some major concepts in philosophical approaches to sexuality and sensuality and introduce some major works. Participants should bring their own favorite ideas to share, but should leave any proclivity towards argument at the door.

The danger of running a workshop like this, of course, is that some persons may attempt to dominate the discussion, so participants are asked to be concise in their workshop philosophizing. Additionally, this is not meant to be a forum for debate, but rather a roundtable where ideas can be shared and a place where a community of persons thinking in new ways about old habits can be exchanged. Clearly, if any one of us held the keys to all the truths about sexuality and sexual politics, we would be living in a very different world than we are.

A suggested reading list will be made available online prior to the conference, but no advance reading will be required.

Beyond the Body Binary
Background:
It is not uncommon for many of us to learn hate our bodies, and these conflicts are often made most clear when the person is displaying their conflict on the outside. Some examples include transsexual and transgender persons, queer persons and anorexic and bulimic persons. With all this rampant self-hatred, it seems that the most revolutionary thing one can do is learn to love one's body despite the messages being delivered by outer forces, including media, family, and friends.

Starting from the marginalized perspective of genderqueer transgender dyke raised in rural religious community, this workshop will begin to shed some light on the common ground we share as we try to overcome the barrage of messages that are delivered to us about our imperfect bodies.

We start from this perspective, of course, since that's the perspective of me, the presenter. It is often easier to see the flaws in a system as immense as the gender binary from a marginal perspective. Plus, if it's possible for a poor femme feminist tranny dyke to learn ways to love her own body without the intervention of surgery, I think we all stand a pretty good chance of revolutionizing sexuality.

This workshop is open to persons of all genders and sexual orientations, and all persons will be asked to do their best to be aware of the potentially sensitive nature of the information which can and will be shared in this space. Therefore, participants are asked to show up on time and plan to stay for the entire workshop.

Structure:
This workshop opens with a new multimedia performance developed specifically by performance artist Rahne Alexander for Dark Odyssey 2005. This performance piece is designed to introduce concepts and discussion for the discussion/participation segment of the workshop. Participants will be encouraged to explore their own histories for the ways that binaries in gender and sexuality have helped and/or hindered their development as sexual and sensual persons.