Seminar Series: Theodore Greene (Bowdin College)

“Making Dupont Gay Again: Place Reactivation and the Rise of the Vicarious Citizen” Gay neighborhoods are changing — but the changes we observe do not necessarily signal their disappearance. Drawing on gay neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., this talk investigates how community members preserve the function and identity of these neighborhoods through ephemeral forms of place-making. Without claims of residency, these self-identified community members mobilize their practices to stake legitimate claims of local ownership and belonging, at times challenging the spatial claims of residents who may hold alternate visions of community. Theo Greene is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology at Bowdoin College. His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of sexuality, urbanism, and culture. Greene’s research broadly uses sexual communities to understand how urban redevelopment shape and reconfigure how individuals conceptualize, identify to, and participate in local communities. He is the author of Not in MY Gayborhood! Gay Neighborhoods and the Rise of the Vicarious Citizen. In addition to his ongoing scholarship on gay neighborhoods and queer placemaking in Maine, Theo is currently Chair-Elect of Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association and sits on several boards supporting LGBTQ communities in Portland, Maine, including the Frannie Peabody Center and the Equality Community Center.