Class Notes on Dr. Caleb Luna's Presentation and Course Announcements

Change in Requirements:
- Due to the cancellation of Dr. Ana Martinez's session, assignment requirement changed from three out of five to two out of four essays.
- Dr. Martinez will still attend Week 10, but students only need to submit two essays.
- Students may submit more than one essay if they choose.
Quiz Notification:
- A quiz is scheduled for tomorrow, available from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM.
- Quiz will focus on the artists Mesa Beins, Ibarra Frausto, and Tomas Ibarra Frausto, specifically regarding the visual art discussed in recent classes.
- Each student is allowed one quiz grade to be dropped.

Speaker: Dr. Caleb Luna
- Acknowledged for their generous contribution despite busy academic schedules.
- Dr. Luna's courses are typically held on Mondays and Wednesdays; special exception for this Thursday meeting.
Background Information on Dr. Luna:
- Profession: Writer, performer, and educator.
- Achievements: Award-winning educator; best-selling author of the book "Revenge".
- Podcast: Co-host of "Unsolicited Fatties Talk Back".
- Education: Holds a PhD in Performance Studies with emphasis on Gender and Women’s Studies from UC Berkeley.
- Former UC president and Mellon Foundation post-doctoral fellow.
- Currently serves as Assistant Professor at UC Santa Barbara in Feminist Studies.
- Director of the LGBTQ Studies minor.
- May discuss upcoming courses in future quarters for student interest.

Contextual Foundation:
- Engage with the normative or acceptable erotics of various activities and practices.
- Explore how minoritarian subjects access identity, connection, pleasure, joy, and resistance.
Key Reference:
- Quote from anthropologist Nina Doss regarding sharing experiences of violence: "What is it to pick up a piece of… and live in this very place?"
- Explores themes of racial and sexual rejection.
Artistic Examples:
- Discusses a seven-minute bilingual digital performance by Morgan Wood, a fat nonbinary Chicanx vocalist.
- Video: "Desairo Penaisa" presents themes of queer Latinx erotics, shifting from notions of holiness to freedom and community.
- Visual depiction of intimacy through artistic expression:
- Scenes include close physical contact and mutual presentations of desire and intimacy.
- Highlights the dynamics of body image, societal perceptions of fatness, and connection.
- References cultural figures across various identities that showcase complex manifestations of oppression and opportunities for identification.
Analysis of Aesthetics and Erotics:
- Proposes examining the aesthetics of pleasure and survival amid cultural anxieties.
- Discusses complications of gender and race intersections, highlighting the complexities within these topics.
- Recognizes that discussions around gender should be expansive and inclusive of various identities.

An open session for questions and comments was initiated post-presentation.
Question on Excess as an Aesthetic:
- Discusses how excess relates to ideals of unfettered expression and access in cultural contexts.
- Mentioned that fatness is often racialized and must be reconciled with historical context involving notions from fitness culture and colonial values.
- Exploration of the history and impact of the Body Mass Index (BMI), asserting that it was not originally a health indicator but became distorted in societal usage.
- Experiences related to being labeled as 'fat' typically evoke a sense of guilt or shame, affecting a wide demographic.
Discussion on Body Positivity vs. Fat Liberation:
- Critiques the colonization of the fat liberation movement into a strictly body positivity narrative that disconnects historical oppression from personal experience.
- Emphasizes the need to connect individual body narratives with communal and historical experiences of oppression.