Research Workshop for Queer Theory

Faculty Coordinator

• Tim Dean (Department of English)

Graduate Student Coordinator

• Leah Benedict (Department of English)

About the Workshop

The Research Workshop for Queer Theory interrogates identity and the normalizing technologies of power that pathologize other forms of sociality, subjectivity, embodiment, and erotic practice. At the same time, it renders queer theory itself as an object of critical inquiry. As such, we will focus on thinking through its recurrent problems and limitations, on developing nascent forms of queer critique, and on placing queer theory in conversation with other theoretical discourses. We see a highly interdisciplinary workshop, comprised of not only those familiar with queer theory but also those coming to it for the first time, as necessary for the success and longevity of such a project.

Meeting Schedule

"At the Limit: Pornography and the Humanities" (conference)

March 26-27, 2010 | Featured Speakers: Robert Caserio (Department of English, Pennsylvania State University); Harri Kalha (Department of Art History, University of Helsinki); Mireille Miller-Young (Department of Feminist Studies, UC Santa Barbara); Hoang Tan Nguyen (Department of English, Bryn Mawr College); Zabet Patterson (Department of Art, SUNY Stony Brook); John Paul Ricco (Centre for Visual and Media Culture, U of Toronto); Linda Williams (Department of Film and Rhetoric, UC Berkeley)

Jasbir Puar (Department of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers)

January 29, 2009 | “Prognosis Time: Towards a Geopolitics of Affect,Debility, and Capacity”

Siobhan Somerville (Departments of English and Women's and Gender Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

April 6, 2009 | “Queering the Immigrant Romance: Naturalization, Imperialism, and the Performance of U. S. Citizenship”

Steven Miller (Department of English, UB)

February 28, 2008 | "Literature and the Right to Marriage"

Tim Dean (Department of English, UB)
March 27, 2008 | "Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking"

Michael Snediker (Department of English, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario)

October 8, 2008 | “Jack Spicer's Billy the Kid: Faking the Personal”