2.7 - Carl Schottmiller

If These Stalls Could Talk:  Gendered Spaces and Identity Construction
in Latrinalia
at 12pm
Conference room, 160

Latrinalia (restroom graffiti) scholarship spans disciplines and
generations:  from sexologist Alfred Kinsey to psychoanalytic
folklorist Alan Dundes, scholars have studied latrinalia as revealing
the inner psychological workings of "deviant" subjects.  This project
shifts its analytical focus away from the unknowable graffiti producer
to the consumer.  With a methodology derived from phenomenology,
queer/gender theories, and folkloristics, this presentation
investigates how consumers through engagement with and interpretation
of graffiti produce subjectivities for the unknown producers.  Looking
at documented latrinalia images and interviews with consumers, this
project theorizes latrinalia as spatial tactics through which subjects
may uphold hegemonic notions of gender or deconstruct these notions
through engagement with latrinalia.


Carl Schottmiller is a Culture and Performance Ph.D. student at the
department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance in the University of
California, Los Angeles. He holds a MA degree in Folklore from the
University of California, Berkeley.  This presentation is derived from
his MA thesis of the same title.  Carl?s research interests include
phenomenology, queer corporeal representations, and drag as a
therapeutic tactic for anxiety and body image disorders.