Stigmatized Trailblazers to Celebrated Deviants:
Discourses of (Homo)sexuality in the Montréal Press after the Québec Quiet Revolution, 1969-1977
Robin Sudanan Turner
Recipient of the 2025 Smalley Graduate Research Fellowship in GWS
Abstract: My project investigates changes in news media discourses that framed (homo)sexuality after the Québec Quiet Revolution (1960-1966). I analyze how language choices signified transformations in cultural attitudes, language ideologies, identity politics, and community values. Drawing on examples from French and English news items that linked sexual liberation and Québec sovereignty, this talk explores what this implied for overarching social debates around language, religion, and Québec politics.
Robin Sudanan Turner (she/her) is a PhD candidate in French Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with graduate minors in Queer Studies; Gender and Women's Studies; and European Union Studies. She grew up between Bangkok, Thailand and Newport News, Virginia. She has a BA in French and Spanish from George Mason University and an MA in Applied French Linguistics from the University of Alabama. She has designed, coordinated, and taught interdisciplinary classes on French, culture studies, linguistics, queer studies, and communication.