“Tropical Exceptions – Racial Logics in Twentieth Century Intergovernmental Age of Consent Debates” Legal age standards for sexual maturity are challenging enough to devise at the state or national level, but they are especially contentious at the intergovernmental level. Efforts at setting common standards have often been marked by imperial logics on the part of those proposing common standards and misgivings on the part of those most affected. Dr. Tambe’s talk traces how intergovernmental efforts at setting common age standards for sexual consent and marriage occasioned elaborate posturing and coding of racial difference. In the two cases Tambe discusses —League of Nations conventions on trafficking in the 1920s and United Nations conventions on marriage in the 1950s— she show how the proceedings staged contests between competing imperialisms and foregrounded moral differences between parts of the world. In effect, seemingly neutral age categories became a means to express geopolitical hierarchies and undercut formal liberal relationships of equivalence.

Ashwini Tambe studies how societies regulate sexual practices, and why sexual practices are freighted with political meaning. Her previous work has engaged the history of sex trade regulation in Bombay. Her forthcoming book focuses on age standards for sexual consent and the legal paradoxes in defining girlhood in India. She is also writing a book on academic feminism and the #MeToo movement, and co-editing a volume on the history and future of transnational feminist theory. She is the editorial director of Feminist Studies, the oldest US journal of feminist interdisciplinary scholarship.

The Center for Cultural Studies hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work by faculty and visitors. The sessions consist of a 40-45 minute presentation followed by discussion. We gather at noon, with presentations beginning at 12:15 PM. Participants are encouraged to bring their own lunches; the Center provides coffee, tea, and cookies.

All Center for Cultural Studies events are free and open to the public. Staff assistance is provided by the Humanities Institute.