Assistant Professor
Resume:
Dear Amelia Seto-Hung,
I am thrilled to be applying for the position of Writing Instructor at CTL Writing Support. I currently hold a PhD from the University of California, San Diego that was conferred in November of 2019. I have nearly 6 years experience teaching at a university level for courses that all contain an essay writing component. Having taught at the University of Toronto, I am familiar with teaching through Quercus. I look forward to bringing diversity and excellence to your teaching staff.
I received my PhD upon defending my dissertation The Social Politics of Queer Drag: A Study of San Diego’s Queer Community and Queercore Culture (2019). The dissertation combines critical race studies, queer theory and performance studies in an original and forward-looking analysis of how race and class interact in drag performance community along the U.S.-Mexico border. I dialogue with performers who are often not from privileged backgrounds and ask how they navigate questions of work, performance, language, race and womanhood when moving between these spaces. From extracts of the dissertation, I have assembled my forthcoming article in the internationally recognized journal MUSICultures for their special issue on “Queer Musicking.”
I have been the instructor-of-record 15 times since I began teaching at the university level in summer session 2015, a combination of small seminars (approx. 20 people) and large lecture classes (approx. 400 people). These courses are attended by junior and senior undergraduates. During this time, I have authored five original syllabi. Each course teaches students vital skills such as critical thinking, researching, and essay writing. I incentivize preparation by breaking down the process of writing into smaller steps like forming a research question or creating an annotated bibliography, both of which students submit for feedback. My goal is that students leave my class prepared to be methodical and conscientious researchers and writers. I taught at the University of Toronto in the Women and Gender Studies Institute during the Winter term of 2020. When COVID hit, all our teaching went online. I was asked to, very quickly, reconfigure my syllabus in order to complete the semester working with Quercus. Through this experience I learned a lot about online learning. I have been participating in the seminars and lectures available for part-time faculty this year that teach how to move courses online. I am now ready and prepared to be more effective with my online teaching. My students will attest to my devotion to teaching and my care for diversity. As a transgender woman, I am most often a minority in the room. I strongly pursue openness and gender equality Sadie Hochman-Ruiz
805-4222 Bathurst Street
North York, ON, Canada
M3H 3R2
*******.*****@*****.***
www.sadiepins.com
in my classrooms during discussion. Also, as someone who has worked on a long term research project with African-American and Mexican-American populations, I have put in significant work to prioritize racial justice in my teaching.
Sincerely,
Sadie Hochman-Ruiz (Pronouns: she/her)
Dr. Sadie Hochman-Ruiz Curriculum Vitae
(pronouns: she/her)
805-4222 Bathurst Street
North York, ON M3H 3R2
*******.*****@*****.***
www.sadiepins.com
Research Interests: Popular Music Studies, Trans Studies, Queer Theory, Critical Race Theory EDUCATION
Ph.D., Music: Integrative Studies, University of California, San Diego (2019) Dissertation: The Social Politics of Queer Drag: A Study of San Diego’s Queer Community and Queercore Subculture
Chair: Amy Cimini (Music, UCSD)
Committee: David Borgo (Music, UCSD)
Anthony Burr (Music, UCSD)
Roshanak Kheshti (Ethnic Studies, UCSD)
William O’Brien (Literature, UCSD)
Steve Waksman (American Studies, Smith College)
M.A. Music and Culture, Carleton University (2013) B.A. (Hons.) Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University (2011) HONOURS, AWARDS AND GRANTS
2020 Research Assistant, Performance Ethnography Working Group, University of Toronto Scarborough
2013-19 Graduate Student Block Grant, UCSD Music
2018 Dean’s Travel Grant and GSA Travel Grant to tour dawson’sCreamo 2014-15 Award for TA Excellence, UCSD Music
2012 Graduate Scholarship, Carleton University
2012 Dean of Graduate Studies Entrance Scholarship for Domestic Students, Carleton University
2010-11 Maurice Dubin Memorial Prize in Composition, Queen’s School of Music 2010-11 Dean’s Honour List with Distinction, Queen’s University 2008-09 Dean’s Honour List
PUBLICATIONS
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:
2021 “Of Drag Queens and Transsexuals: Boundary Policing: Classism and Police Repression” in Transgender Studies Quarterly 8.4 (submitted, awaiting response) 2020 “Why Political?: Blackness and Queer Urban Geography in San Diego and Toronto” in MUSICultures the scholarly journal of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music special issue on Queer Musicking (forthcoming Fall 2020)
2016 Hochman, Sadie. “Disorienting Guitar Practice: An Alternative Guitar Archive” in Critical Studies in Media Communication: Queer Technologies in Communication 33:1. 95-108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2015.1129061 Peer-Reviewed Blog Posts:
2020 Hochman, Sadie. “Performance Ethnography Working Group Update.” Ethnography Lab: A University of Toronto Anthropology Initiative. Posted March 4th, 2020. https://ethnographylab.ca/2020/03/04/performance-ethnography-working-group-update/ PRESENTATIONS
Select Conference Presentations:
2019 “A Trans Studies Perspective on Research Methods and Writing” presented at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music conference at the University du Québec au Montréal
2018 ““Why Political?”: Race and Class in Queercore Subculture” presented at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
2017 “Queercore: Queer Punk Subculture and Urban Geography” presented at ECHO Conference at UCLA
2016 “Queercore: Queer Punk Subculture and Urban Geography” presented at International Association for the Study of Popular Music Canada Conference in the University of Toronto
2015 “Disorienting Guitar Practice: An Alternative Guitar Archive” presented at The Electric Guitar in Popular Culture Conference at Bowling Green University 2014 “Disorienting Guitar Practice: An Alternative Guitar History” presented at University of Toronto
Invited Talks:
2020 “Beauties Trans Services.” PFLAG. Hamilton, Ontario Discussing my work as co-founder of Beauties Trans Services. (Postponed due to COVID-19).
2020 “Glow Up: A Makeup Series for Trans Women.” Compass Community Health. A four week intensive workshop instructing transwomen and gender non-conforming queer folx how to build a beauty regimen from skincare to makeup. (Reformatted as an online Q&A and small audience Zoom classes due to COVID-19). 2020 “Sadie Hochman - Why Political?” What, Like It’s Hard? Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-political-blackness-queer-urban-geographies- in/id1480611698?i=100**********
Organizational Affiliations
International Association for the Study of Popular Music Canada UNIVERSITY TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
Instructor of Record:
MUS 2079 - Special Topics in Music History: Hip Hop University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario, Canada) Winter Semester 2021
Level 2 Course
WSFT 2274 - Intro to Transgender Studies
University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario, Canada) Fall Semester 2019
Fall Semester 2020
Level 2 Course
25 Enrolled (Required for Sexuality Studies Majors) WGS 376 - Studies in Queer and Trans
University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
Spring Semester 2020
Level 3 Course (Upper Year)
60 Enrolled (Priority to majors; open to electives) WSFT 1023 - Gay Life and Culture in the 21st Century University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario, Canada) Fall Semester 2019
Level 1 Course
40 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
MUS116 - Queercore: Queer Punk Subculture
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Summer Session 2019
Summer Session 2018
Level 3 Course (Upper Year)
20 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
MUS15 - Punk, Indie, Underground and Alternative
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Spring Quarter 2019
Fall Quarter 2018
Summer Session 1 2016
Winter Session 2016
Fall Quarter 2016
Summer Session 2 2015
Level 1 Course (Lower Level)
270 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
MUS17 - Hip-Hop
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Winter Quarter 2018
Fall Quarter 2017
Level 1 Course (Lower Level)
400 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
Teaching Assistant:
MUS17 - Hip-Hop
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Winter Quarter 2019
Spring Quarter 2018
Spring Quarter 2017
Spring Quarter 2016
Level 1 Course (Lower Level)
400 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
MUS15 - Electronic Dance Music
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Winter Quarter 2017
Level 1 Course (Lower Level)
270 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
MUS15 - The Beatles
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Spring Quarter 2015
Fall Quarter 2014
Winter Quarter 2014
Level 1 Course (Lower Level)
350 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
MUS15 - Video Game Music
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Winter Quarter 2015
Level 1 Course (Lower Level)
150 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
MUS15 - Korean Pop Music
University of California San Diego (San Diego, California, USA) Fall 2013
Level 1 Course (Lower Level)
400 Enrolled (Open to Electives)
UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
2017 Planning Committee, Sonic Fluidities Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, UCSD
2016 Speaker/Educator, First-Year Teaching Assistants, UCSD Teaching Advisor for Dr. Sarah Hankins, UCSD
2012 Committee Member, Graduate Academic Caucus, Carleton University Committee Member, GSA Representative, Carleton University Committee Member, GSA Scholarship and Awards, Carleton University Social Media Co-ordinator, Music and Cultural Studies Graduate Student Society, Carleton University
Committee Member, Music and Cultural Studies Graduate Student Society Conference Organization, Carleton University
2011 Committee Member, Students Against Poverty, Queen’s University CREATIVE WORK
Discography
2020 “Not Another Queer Movie,” masc4masc, People Places Records
(http://masc4masc.bandcamp.com/album/not-another-queer-movie) Exploration of queer memory, childhood and nostalgia in three parts, including radical improvisation with extended techniques on the guitar. Collaboration with Hillary Jean Young
2018 “Dawson’sCreamo, masc4masc,” self-released.
Multidisciplinary live performance including the live performance of an original score, queer storytelling, and an original short-film. Sound collage featuring original recorded sound and plundered audio clips. Installed in an interactive art piece at www.masc4mascband.herokuapp.com
Collaboration with Hillary Jean Young
Musical Performances
2019 masc4masc, Not Another Queer Movie, B2 Art Events’ “Who Killed Cupid?,”
#1 on 5th, San Diego, CA
2018 masc4masc, Not Another Queer Movie, The Offbeat, Los Angeles, CA masc4masc, Not Another Queer Movie, Queer Time: Two Happenings on November 5th, Ché Café Collective, San Diego, CA
masc4masc, Dawson’sCreamo, Is This A Reality Show: A Queer Comedy Cabaret, Weird Hues, Chula Vista, CA
masc4masc, Dawson’sCreamo, Club DiDi, Lethbridge, AB masc4masc, Dawson’sCreamo, Salsa Restaurant, Calgary, AB masc4masc, Dawson’sCreamo, The Sewing Machine Factory, Edmonton, AB Peer-Reviewed, Invited Performance:
2018 masc4masc, Dawson’sCreamo, IASPM Canada Conference, University of Regina, Regina, SK
Curated Art Events
2018 Is This A Reality Show: A Queer Comedy Cabaret at Weird Hues in San Diego, California
Is This A Reality Show brought together artists and performers from San Diego’s queer experimental art and border art scenes. Held in a DIY space in Chula Vista, now the fully renovated Weird Hues gallery, the night featured music, film, performance art, drag and visual art.
Sadie Pins Drag Performances:
Sadie Pins is a performance art project. Aligned with the objective of public humanities to reach diverse audiences with research, Sadie Pins draws on my own identity as a transgender woman, a lesbian and a punk to examine and critique the fetishized body of drag performance. 2019 San Diego Trans Pride in San Diego, California Performance: “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” - Cyndi Lauper Chastity St. Dionne’s Charity Fundraiser for Ms. Gay Pride San Diego at The Rail in San Diego, California
Performances: “Double Dare Ya,” “Liar” - Bikini Kill
“Feed Me Diamonds” - MNDR
Tiger’s Charity Fundraiser for Special Delivery San Diego at #1 on 5th in San Diego, California
Performances: “I Think We’re Alone Now” - Tiffany
“Venus” - Bananarama
Love Affair Queer Dance Night at Whistle Stop in San Diego, California Performance: “Breed” - Snake River Conspiracy
KC Starr’s Fundraiser for Maria Kappos Funeral Costs at #1 on 5th in San Diego, California
Performances: “Hand In My Pocket” - Alanis Morissette Drag Me to DIVAS at RICH’S in San Diego, California Performances: “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” - Cyndi Lauper Mariam’s Tea Party: A Comedy Cabaret at Urban Mo’s in San Diego, California Performances: “P.S. I Love You” - Robin Daggers
“Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady” - Barbara Streisand (Funny Girl) Whips N Furs: Dead Disco at Urban Mo’s in San Diego, California Performances: “I Will Survive” - Gloria Gaynor
“Army of Me” - Björk
City Royals Showcase at The Rail in San Diego, California Performances: “One Of Us” - Joan Osbourne
“Dreams” - The Corrs
2018 Whips N Furs: Sick Santa at Space Bar in San Diego, California Performances: “Oi! to the World” - No Doubt
The Gig at The Rail in San Diego, California
Performances: “Breathless” - The Corrs
“Crush” - Jennifer Paige
Queer Time: Two Happenings on November 5th at the Ché Café Collective in San Diego, California
Performances: “He Wasn’t Man Enough For Me” - Toni Braxton Whips N Furs: Punk at Urban Mo’s in San Diego, California Performances: “Put Your Love in Me” - Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics Whips N Furs: Exorcism at Urban Mo’s in San Diego, California Performances: “Gloomy Sunday” - Diamanda Galas
Whips N Furs: Animal at Urban Mo’s in San Diego, California Performances: “Bomb the Twist” - The 5.6.7.8.s”
ACTIVISM WORK
2019-present Co-Founder, Beauties Trans Services
www.instagram.com/beauties.trans.services
RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2017 Volunteer, The San Diego Gay & Lesbian Community Centre Writing Sample
Of Drag Queens and Transsexuals: Boundary Policing, Classism and Police Repression You can take performance enhancing drugs and still be an athlete, just not in the Olympics. 1
- RuPaul
RuPaul’s now infamous 2018 tweet reignited tensions between drag queens and transgender women. She compares transwomen in drag on hormonal treatments to athletes on steroids. Her remarks were met with swift backlash from the trans community and beyond. 2 Since the passing of marriage equality in the United States in 2014, transgender issues have taken over as a chief priority of LGBT+ activist organizations. RuPaul’s show, RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009-present), responded to this cultural shift by dropping some of its more questionable vernacular as early as 2015; but this tweet reminded the trans community that a deep well of mutual resentment lays beneath the surface. Though scholarship on gay culture in the early 20th century has detailed the ubiquity of gender-variance in homosexual communities, a near forty year old body of scholarship on drag has yet to offer a compelling history of how drag queens and transsexuals grew apart. Early drag scholarship knew too little about the history of transgender women. Their research is often based on inaccurate or misleading assumptions. But, unintentionally this work can be instructive. I introduce this literature as a primary resource and offer an interpretive framework for their comments on transsexuals and transvestites. More recent scholarship has, on occasion, explored the relationship between drag queens and transgender women. This literature has focused quite intensely on questions of identity, reducing the competition between drag queens and transwomen to a question of protecting gay male aesthetics. 3 Elsewhere, drag is a strategy for femmes to fight social domination within a sexual culture that worships masculinity. 4 Transphobia in drag culture protects gay femininity by 1 Framke, Caroline. “How RuPaul’s comments on trans women led to a Drag Race revolt –– and a rare apology. Vox March 7 2018 https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/6/17085244/rupaul-trans-women-drag-queens-interview- controversy
2 The comments themselves don’t really line up with the reality of the show in which transgender performers have themselves appeared and participants are quite open about their silicone injections and cosmetic surgeries. Peppermint, a transgender woman, came out as such on camera in season 9 (2017) that aired before the comments. Gia Gunn, an out transgender woman, returned for All Stars Season 4 in (2018) that aired the December after the tweet but were filmed significantly earlier. So RuPaul’s transphobia appears to have more bark than bite. Not to mention, the show repeatedly makes light of silicone injections. Naysha Lopez in season 8 (2016) was asked if her ass is real to which she replied its real silicone. (Not to mention that Rupaul appears to have gotten pectoral implants during that time, a procedure many drag queens undergo because they look masculine out of drag and can be easily transformed through makeup into magnificent looking cleavage). 3 Brusselaers, Dieter, ““Pick up a book and go read”: Art and Legitimacy in RuPaul’s Drag Race”,” in RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Shifting Visibility of Drag Culture: The Boundaries of Reality TV eds. Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas (Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017), 46. 4 Halperin, David, How To Be Gay (Harvard Press)
protecting gay men from being considered women. While I do not question that much of the back-and-forth between the two communities does take the form of discussions about gay versus trans identity, in my research I take a broader historical vantage to expand and clarify the origins of this debate and why it continues to carry such rhetorical force. In this article I will be speaking through a variety of narrative registers to reconstruct the fissure between the drag and trans communities. For the initial section, I speak with the voice of a queer, cultural critic investigating a digital trail of crumbs to rebuild and reflect on transphobia in the modern era of drag. For the second section, I alternate between an historical narrative and interview soundbites to tell the story of San Diego’s city ordinance against cross-dressing; a cause that would––through Nicole Murray Ramirez––bring the the trans and drag worlds together but also represent how they had come apart. In the following section, I offer an original re-reading of Esther Newton’s Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America (1972) that draws on historical context from trans history that was lacking from the original. The final section questions the boundary policing that happens between transwomen and drag queens. Nicole Murray Ramirez, also known as “Nicole The Great,” is a local celebrity in San Diego’s LGBTQ+ community (see figure one). Her narrative as a pre-op transsexual cum drag queen leads her to first hand knowledge of how the frictions between these two communities work to erase the other. 5 Nicole arrived in San Diego in 1970 to do sex work, claiming the identity of a pre-op transsexual. She built a political career around her activism to repeal the city’s anti-crossdressing ordinance. Later in the 1970s, she would stop hormonal treatments and focus more on her drag career as the Queen Empress of the Americas in the Imperial Court. 6 The Imperial Court is a non-profit organization that fundraises for LGBT causes and coronates its members with court “titles.” The gendered titles both allow and encourage people like Nicole to cultivate entire social worlds living as a woman. Doing drag for the members of the Imperial Court means building a life around the practice of being or playing the role of a woman. Especially considering drag is widely understood as a staged performance, the nuances of Nicole’s life as a drag queen do not make much of an appearance in drag scholarship. Her unstable veering from transsexual to drag queen messes up the clear demarcations that are assumed in foundational studies of drag by Esther Newton, Peter Ackroyd (1979), and Marjoree Garber (1992)––just to name a few.
Whereas the separation between drag queens and transgender women is most frequently understood as one of incongruity of identity, I argue that class is the driving force. During the 5 Nicole isn’t really tied to any pronouns. They use he/him for their “straight” life in government. However, using she/her is a sign of endearment in the drag community. For this reason, I use she/her pronouns in article. Occasionally I use they/them, to indicate how their identity exceeds categorization and embodiment. 6 Nicole’s mentor, José Sarria (b. 1922), is the founder of the Imperial Court System. José is a gay man, a drag queen and the first openly gay candidate to run for political office in the late-50s/early-60s. He began the Imperial Court in San Francisco in 1961. Nicole met José in the 1970s and brought the Imperial Court system to San Diego, one of the first and oldest chapters in the organization. The Imperial Court now has chapters across the USA and Canada. She became the heir to the Imperial Court system 13 years ago as Nicole the Great, Queen Empress of the Americas. 1970s, a gay middle-class began their fight to secure equal rights. 7 Gays and lesbians made significant political gains and members of the community themselves won seats in local governments around the country. The gay rights movement rode this cultural shift en route to securing protections for gay and lesbian citizens, members of the military, and also LGBT employees. In the narrative presented by Nicole Murray Ramirez, the trans community was left out of this rights-oriented narrative. The anti-crossdressing ordinance was left untouched until 1998, remaining highly unpopular to challenge even as gays and lesbians made exceptional gains, including the election of Christine Kehoe to city council in 1993 as an out lesbian. Even though there are many different ideas we as scholars of trans history can forward to explain the double standard, Nicole’s story proposes the popularity of the anti-crossdressing ordinance was due to connection between the trans community and high risk behaviour. Some of this behaviour includes prostitution and drugs, but it also includes cross-dressing outside of the safe space of the stage. Drag adopted a language of professionalism as a means of protecting themselves and ensuring their safety against being associated with transsexuals/transvestites. The risky behaviours of trans women were the kinds of practices that veteran drag queens felt the need to shield younger performers against. By focusing on shifting discourses of labour, I am able to better contextualize and prepare an audience to understand why RuPaul phrased her transphobia as a question of cheating. She, standing on the shoulders of the gay rights movement, reminds her audience once again that “you betta work.”
7 George Chauncey in Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940
(New York: Basic Books, 1994) finds a gay middle-class identity forming even earlier, around the 1930s. References
Amy Cimini
Assistant Professor (Music), University of California San Diego *******@****.***
Anthony Burr
Assistant Professor (Music), University of California San Diego *****@****.***
Norma Coates
Professor (Music), University of Western Ontario
*******@***.**
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