Events, Conferences & Seminars

2022 Kessler Awards! Back in person! Celebrating Dr. Juana María Rodríguez

On December 8th at 6:00 PM, Join CLAGS, the Center for LGBTQ Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, in honoring Dr. Juana María Rodríguez, our 31st annual Kessler Award recipient. The David R. Kessler Award is given every year to a scholar and/ or activist who has produced a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies.

Testimonial speakers:

Emma Perez

Judith Butler

Xandra Ibarra

Learn more about Dr. Rodríguez and her Work on our Eventbrite where you can RSVP!

José Muñoz Award Ceremony Honoring Carmelita Tropicana

Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 | 7:00pm EST

CLAGS is excited to announce CARMELITA TROPICANA as our 2021 Honoree for the José Muñoz Award.

Carmelita Tropicana has been performing in New York’s downtown arts scene since the 1980’s, straddling the worlds of performance art and theater with irreverent humor, subversive fantasy, and bilingual puns.

Numerous academic scholars have written about her work including queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz in his seminal book Disidentifications, Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics.

Tropicana was an original member of the WOW theater collective, served on the Board of Directors of PS New York, and presently serves on the New York Foundation for the Arts board. She’s a member of Actors Equity Association and the Dramatist Guild.

The Award Ceremony and discussion will be via Zoom and livestreamed on our FB Page.

The José Muñoz Award is given in honor of LGBTQ activists who have promoted queer and trans studies and visibility in their work. Previous awardees include Janet Mock and Jose Antonio Vargas as well as Patrisse Cullors.

This event is presented with Public Programs at the CUNY Graduate Center.

CLAGS supports the QLM

Sunday, June 27, 2021

See the Reclaim Pride Coalition for more information.

CLAGS Student Virtual Meet and Greet Hang Out! 
Friday, April 23, 2021 | 6:00pm EST

CLAGS – the Center for LGBTQ Studies would like to invite you to join us for our first Virtual Meet and Greet Hang Out! 

The academic year has been tough on all of us! We miss seeing you in hanging out in our office so, we decided to organize a virtual meet and greet hang out to get to know each other and reconnect. Our first hang out is on Friday, April 23 at 6:00pm and we’d love to see you there. 

Come and share what you are studying or researching, your interests, and what school or program you attend. We want to know you and we want to help you meet other LGBTQ students! 

If our community is interested in continuing the hang outs, we’re happy to hold it once a month. So, join us with your favorite snack, beverage, or both, and we promise, once we can meet in person again, food and drink is on us!

Queer Then and Now: Kesslers on Queer Studies & Activism

Thursday February 18th – 6:00-7:30pm 

Join us for a conversation with Amber Hollibaugh, Dean Spade, and Urvashi Vaid on the histories and current state of queer/trans activism in and outside New York City. We’ll explore intersections of activism and queer/trans scholarship and CLAGS, and the pressing issues facing us today and into the future. Moderated by CLAGS Board member, Shanté Paradigm Smalls. Sponsored by CLAGS and co-sponsored by The Feminist Futures initiative at UC Santa Barbara.

Being Queer in Nepal: Changing Perspectives

March 3, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. ET / 2:00 p.m. 

What does it mean to be queer in Southasia? After making historic legal gains, what does the LGBTIQ movement in Nepal look like two decades later? How has the Blue Diamond Society, the pioneering LGBTIQ organization, engaged with and accommodated a new generation of activists? Join us for a conversation betweenNiranjan Kunwar, author of Nepal’s first queer memoir, Between Queens and the Cities, andDr. Debanuj Dasgupta, Assistant Professor at the University of California.  The event is hosted by the Swedish South Asian Studies Network(SASNET), based at Lund University, and co-sponsored by CLAGS.

Coronavirus Vaccine Reluctance in Black and Latinx Communities in NYC The Remix!

Wednesday, March 17th, 2021 | 4 – 6:00pm

In celebration of Women’s History Month, the BCC Social Justice Network, Womxn Up! & CUNY CLAGS invites you to our 2^nd Community Conversation

• Register in advance here: http://bit.ly/CVD19Vaccine
• A PDF of our flyer is available here: http://bit.ly/CVD19Convo2
• Ask your questions, in advance, here: http://bit.ly/30xdvwH

Queer Then and Now: Kesslers on Queer Studies & Activism – Roundtable 2

Thursday March 25th – 6:00pm-7:30pm

Join us for a conversation with Roderick Ferguson, Jasbir Puar, and Susan Stryker on the histories and current state of queer/trans scholarship and activist-scholarship. We’ll explore genealogies of and debates within queer and trans studies from 2000 to today, the intersections of scholarship and activism and CLAGS, and new directions in queer and trans studies now and for the future. Moderated by CLAGS Board member, Shaka McGlotten.

Sponsored by CLAGS and co-sponsored by The Feminist Futures initiative at UC Santa Barbara.

Black Feminist Film & Margo Okazawa-Rey

Thursday, 25 March, 2021 | 12:00 PM – 02:00 PM

BLACK FEMINIST is a lively and illuminating documentary that explores the double-edged sword of racial and gender oppression that Black Women face in America. Join us after the film for a discussion with Margo Okazawa-Rey, an activist and educator working on issues of militarism, armed conflict, and violence against women examined intersectionally.  Co-Sponsored by the Student Union and Intercultural Center and the Women and Gender Studies Program at KCC.

https://www.kbcc.cuny.edu/calendar/index.php?eID=1353

From Newsletter to Scholarly Record: Unveiling the CLAGSNews Digital Archive

Thursday, April 1, 2021 | 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Join members of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies and the Mina Rees Library for an unveiling of 35 years of scholarship now publicly accessible, downloadable, and shareable across the world, in the CUNY Academic Works repository. The digital CLAGS Archive illustrates the impact of queer scholarship from the oldest LGBTQ Research Center in the United States, as well as its ongoing alliance with a university library.

Hosted by Shawn(ta) Smith Cruz (NYU), this event will feature remarks by Justin Brown (CLAGS Executive Director), Sarah Chinn (Hunter College), and Graduate Center librarians Jill Cirasella, Kate Angell, and Elvis Bakaitis. Coordinated by the Mina Rees Library and co-sponsored by CLAGS. 

https://library.gc.cuny.edu/event/from-newsletter-to-scholarly-record-unveiling-the-clagsnews-digital-archive/

Black Lesbian Futures

Wed, April 7, 2021 – 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT

Join us to celebrate the publication of Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought (The New Press, 2021) edited by Briona Simone Jones. African American lesbian writers and theorists have made extraordinary contributions to feminist theory, activism, and writing. Mouths of Rain, the companion anthology to Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s classic Words of Fire, traces the long history of intellectual thought produced by Black Lesbian writers, spanning the nineteenth century through the twenty-first century.

Featuring: Cheryl Clarke, Briona Simone Jones, Jewelle Gomez, Susana Morris, Sharon Bridgforth, Lisa C. Moore, Cassandra Grant, Shawn(ta) and Smith-Cruz.

This event is co-sponsored by the Lesbian Herstory Archives, Sinister Wisdom Journal, CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies, CUNY, Black Women Radicals, and NYU Libraries.

Trans CUNY Student Town Hall

Town Hall for CUNY Trans Students and Allies to discuss experiences, issues, and rights with NYC Commission on Human Rights.

Wednesday, April 14, 2021 | 6:00pm – 8:00 pm EDT

The NYC Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) and Nicholas Cevoli, Brooklyn College LGBTQ Community Intern are pleased to co-host the Trans CUNY Student Town Hall. It will be a discussion of student experiences, human rights law, and next steps for CUNY accountability to comply with NYC laws.

The event is co-sponsored by National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) and the Center for LGTBQ Studies (CLAGS).

Register via Eventbrite here.

Queer Ferments: Temporality and Considerations of COVID-19

September 10, 2020 7:00pm EST via Zoom

Rural studies scholar Stina Soderling (Hamilton College) will share from her research on the “Gayborhood,” a queer enclave in Tennessee. Soderling will explore the complexities of “non-linear queer time,” chrononormativity and other concepts of time in the age of COVID-19. 

This event is presented by the Mina Rees Library, and co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women & Society.

The Future of LGBTQ Spaces During & After COVID

Thursday, October 1, 2020 6:30-8:00pm EST via Zoom

Spaces that cater to or provide services for LGBTQ+ communities were already under pressure before the pandemic. From bars to bookstores, stories of lost spaces have been mounting for the past decade. And the global pandemic seems only to be adding fuel to the fire. How are the spaces that are still with us adapting to the current situation and what changes will remain in the future? Join us for a discussion with those who own and/or run spaces in cities across North America about the realities they are facing and how they’re thinking about the future given what they’re dealing with today.

Panelists: Dagoberto Bailon, Trans Queer Pueblo (Phoenix, Arizona); Krystal Campbell-McDaniel, Co-Owner, Alibis (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma); Michael Erickson, Co-Owner, Glad Day Bookshop (Toronto, Ontario); Tandra LaGrone, Executive Director, In Our Voices (Albany, New York)

Moderator: Alexis Clements, CLAGS Board Member, Lesbian Herstory Archives Coordinator, and Director of All We’ve Got

45 Years: A Tribute to the Lesbian Herstory Archives // Join us to celebrate the Launch of Sinister Wisdom 118 

Thursday, October 15, 2020 at 7:00-8:30pm EST

Launch event of Sinister Wisdom 118: Forty-Five Years: A Tribute to the Lesbian Herstory Archives  featuring Joan Nestle, Deborah Edel, Elana Dykewomon, Lucinda Zoe, Linda McKinney, Morgan Gwenwald, Stefani Echeverria-Fenn, Representatives of Little Rainbows: Alexis Clements, with Catalina Schliebener, Ellen Baxt, Luciana Pinchiero, and Elvis Bakaitis.

Hosted by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz

With visuals and hellos from LHA Coordinators past and present.

Cosponsored with Sinister Wisdom Journal: A Multicultural Lesbian Literary & Art Journal, and the Lesbian Herstory Archives.

Queer Pandemics: Gay Like Me 

Wednesday, October 21, 2020 6:00-7:00pm EST via Zoom

In Gay Like Me: A Father Writes to His Son (2020), award-winning Broadway, TV, and film producer Richie Jackson reflects on his past as a proud gay man in a troubled nation to draw lessons for his son, who is about to launch his own life as a gay college student. Jackson’s account of his experiences fighting against homophobia and inequality offers a poignant and powerful response to the AIDS epidemic that can teach us all important lessons about the current coronavirus pandemic.

Co-sponsored by Making Gay History.

“Shamrocks and Shackles: Irish Women’s Prison Writing during the Civil Rights  Movement, 1960s-1990s” by Red Washburn

November 10, 2020 6:00-7:00pm EST via Zoom

In this talk, Red Washburn explores women’s contributions to the anti-colonial civil rights movements during the Troubles in the Six Counties of Ireland from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. They connect the work Irish women leaders and writers by examining their leadership roles, individual voices, and cultural productions. This project analyses political communiqués and petitions, news coverage, prison files, governmental files, personal letters, poetry and short prose, and memoirs of Irish women. Washburn highlights the personal correspondence, auto/biographical narratives, and poetry of the following key leaders and writers:  Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Margaretta D’Arcy, Roseleen Walsh, Martina Anderson, Ella O’Dwyer, and Mairéad Farrell. These women address similar themes in their prison writing and work either through direct communication (i.e., political communiqués and personal correspondence) and/or indirect expression (i.e., news coverage and auto/biographical responses to it). Drawing on interviews with selected writers for supplemental data in interpreting their personal histories and writing, Washburn analyzes the politics and prose and poetry of Irish women, documenting moments of prison solidarity among them.

Red Washburn, PhD, is Associate Professor of English and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Kingsborough Community College. They also are Adjunct Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College. They are a Research Fellow for the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the Graduate Center, as well. Red’s articles appear in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Theory and Praxis: Women’s and Gender Studies at Community Colleges, and Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches. Their poetry collection Crestview Tree Woman was published by Finishing Line Press. They are the co-editor of Sinister Wisdom’s Celebrating the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, Dump Trump: Legacies of Resistance, and 45 Years: A Tribute to Lesbian Herstory Archives. Red is a coordinator at the Lesbian Herstory Archives and of the Rainbow Book Fair, on the board of directors of Sinister Wisdom and the Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS), and a review chair for the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA).

Co-sponsored with the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), the Center for LGBTQ Studies (GLAGS), The Feminist Press, and the Public Science Project.

Undisclosed Locations: Queens LGBTQ Spaces

November 11, 2020 6:30-8:00pm EST via Zoom

A visual presentation featuring Patricia Silva’s original photographs and archival images of 25+ LGBTQ sites in Queens before the year 2000. An unprecedented record of LGBTQ history in Queens, Undisclosed Locations examines patterns of public space and architectural records to highlight Queens LGBTQ+ cultural history from Astoria to Fort Tilden.

Patricia Silva has been working on this project since the late 1990s, but only in the last 10 years has she begun to rephotograph these sites, and formalize a coherent body of work grounded in research. In 2019, Queens Council on the Arts funded the continued production of this project, and her recent presentation at Queens Pride House has motivated her to present this information to more LGBTQ audiences, in order to connect this knowledge to the broader LGBTQ+ history of New York City.

Queer Disability Justice Dreams with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Sami Schalk

Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 6:00-7:30pm EST Zoom 

(with ASL interpretation and live speech-to-text transcription)

Join us for a panel discussion with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Sami Schalk on crip justice today. In the face of ongoing police brutality against disabled Brown and Black queer and trans folks, how can we think about intersections of disability justice and #BlackLivesMatter? As the pandemic wears on, what are the care- and community-centered responses to COVID-19 and able-bodied white supremacy? What is the place of pleasure and desire in the long history of disability justice organizing? This panel discussion will explore disability justice approaches to working toward and imagining otherwise.

 Cosponsored by Wesleyan University’s Departments of American Studies; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and Accessibility Services.

Non-Binary Panel and Trans Town Hall

November 2020

Kessler Award: Roderick Ferguson

Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 6:00-8:00pm via Zoom

CLAGS, the Center for LGBTQ Studies at CUNY’s Graduate Center, is proud to announce scholar Roderick Ferguson as the winner of the 2020 Kessler Award, given every year to a scholar and/or activist who has produced a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies. 

As is customary, Dr. Ferguson is scheduled to speak before accepting the award. Please join us in honor of Dr. Ferguson and his work to hear his Kessler Award speech entitled, “Queer and Trans Liberation and the Critique of Fascism, or when S.T.A.R. Met Césaire and the Frankfurt School.”

View PDF version.

Queer Milton

Friday, February 1st | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 4:00PM-7:00PM | Room 4406

This book launch and roundtable celebrates the release of the landmark collection Queer Milton, an overdue intervention in the field of Milton criticism. A glittering assemblage of the volume’s contributors will discuss their essays, with topics ranging over gender and sexuality, ecocriticism, and biopolitics. They will also point to paths not yet taken, to queer Miltons waiting to be explored. Mario DiGangi will situate panelists’ remarks in the larger landscape of queer early modern studies.

Co-sponsored with Renaissance Studies Certificate Program and The Joseph A. Wittreich Lectures in Milton Studies.

Participants:
Corey McEleney, Fordham
Erin Murphy, Boston U
David Orvis, Appalachian State
Melissa E. Sanchez, Penn
Steven Swarbrick, Baruch, CUNY
Response by Mario Di Gangi (Lehman College & Graduate Center, CUNY)

POSTPONED: Love: A Blues Epistemology from the Undercommons with Mia White

Thursday, February 28th | The Graduate Center, CUNY| 6:30-8:00PM | Segal Theater

What does it take to build and sustain movements in the millions? Through research, practice and an exploration of the concept “abolition”, Mia White lifts up and amplifies an answer that appears all around us: it takes the spatial practice of abolition and simultaneously understanding these labors as the love we ultimately seek and must make. These spatial practices are found in our “undercommons” – those spaces inhabited and produced by black people, indigenous peoples, queers, and poor people. Mia’s presentation will explore abolition as a spatial-love ethic, one that is embodied, erotic and evident through empirical practices of trauma-healing in our haunted places (body, land, relation).

This event is co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of Women and Society.

Mapping the Sacred: Transforming the Medical Industrial Complex with Cara Page

Thursday, March 7th | The Graduate Center, CUNY| 6:00-8:00PM | Room C198

This talk will ground us in the historical lineage of Healing Justice based on the work CARA PAGE has done on the front lines for over 20 plus years within social justice movements, from the Southeast to New York City, building healing justice strategies as a political tool for transformative justice interventions and racial justice strategies. We will explore the impact of the Medical Industrial Complex as an extension of policing & state violence including how to ‘unsurveil the surveilled’ by challenging scientific racist notions of ‘blood quota & dna‘, as well as reimagine our sacred practices and traditions that are integral to our collective survival and liberation that are rooted in our ancestral geographies.

Check the Cara Page flyer.

This even is co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Women and Society.

Book Salon with Michelle Fine

Wednesday, March 20th | The Graduate Center, CUNY|  6:30-8:30pm | Skylight Room

For our first Book Salon of the Spring 2019 semester, Michelle Fine will be in conversation with Wendy Luttrell and Limarys Caraballo around Fine’s newest book, Just Research. 

Co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Women and Society.

CLAGS Dissertation Prize Talk: HIV-negativity in Black Men who Have Sex with Men (MSM)

Monday, April 8th | The Graduate Center, CUNY|  6:30-8:30pm | Room 9204

Dr. Jagadisa-devasri Dacus is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University. He is state-licensed social worker who possess an extensive history of working for and with community based organizations, nonprofits, and local and state health departments engaged in the provision of HIV programs, interventions, and other services for at-risk people of color populations, youth, drug users, and LGBTQ+ populations.

Dr. Dacus has conducted two National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded research studies that focused on maintained HIV-negativity in Black men who have sex with men (MSM) in New York City. His research aims to identify and understand the psychological, social, and spiritual strengths and resiliencies that contribute to the maintenance of HIV-negativity in Black MSM populations. He received his MS in Social Work from Columbia University and his PhD from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

After Marriage Equality Panel Discussion

Wednesday, April 17th | The Graduate Center, CUNY| 7:00-9:30pm | Skylight Room

Please join us for a roundtable event to celebrate the release and success of the After Marriage Book Series.

Building on a major conference hosted by CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies (2016) entitled “After Marriage: The Future of LGBTQ Politics and Scholarship,” the editors have collected academic papers, edited transcripts of selected conference sessions, and interviews with activists. This collection presents some of the first works of empirical scholarship and first-hand observation to assess the realities of queer families, communities, and movements after same-sex marriage. Additionally, the collection draws from critical and intersectional perspectives to explore the questions and issues facing the next chapter of LGBTQ activism and social movement work.

The discussion will be moderated by Imara Jones and will feature series editors Joseph Nicholas DeFilippis, Angela Jones, and Michael Yarbrough alongside several activists and scholars who contributed to the volumes..

Moderator: Imara Jones, Host of The Last Sip

Panelists: Angela Jones, Assoc. Prof of Sociology at Farmingdale State College; Michael Yarbrough, Asst Prof of Law & Society at John Jay College; Joseph DeFilippis, Founder of Queers for Economic Justice.

Religion and Politics in Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro, the ‘Gay Kit’ and the Rhetorical Construction of ‘Enemies

Monday, May 6th | The Graduate Center, CUNY |6:30-8:30pm | Room 9204

In 2018, Brazil joined a growing list of countries that have elected so-called, “populist” right-wing governments, with the ascension of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency. A key factor that enabled Bolsonaro’s rise to power was his repudiation of pro-LGBT policies. In particular, his condemnation of measures to combat discrimination in schools and allegations that a so-called “Gay Kit” posed a “social risk” to Brazilian children became a central issue in the election. Today, the Brazilian congress is in the midst of debates concerning a series of bills that seek to censor discussion of gender and sexuality in schools. These bills are informed by a transnational Catholic campaign against “gender ideology,” which Brazil’s politically powerful neo-pentecostal churches equally embrace. As activists, professors and researchers who support gender equality and recognition of sexual diversity have been cast by the new president as “enemies” of the Brazilian people, Dr. Tatiana Lionço (Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the Universidade de Brasília) will discuss this conservative backlash in Brazil and its implications for sexual and gender politics.

CLAGS Celebration of Community 

Wednesday, May 22nd |6:00-9:00pm Macaulay Honors College | 35 West 67th Street | New York, NY 10023

Please join the Center for LGBTQ Studies, CLAGS, in a Celebration of Community ​on Wednesday, May 22, 2019. As we Spring toward the Summer, we wanted to take this time to reflect upon the accomplishments of our community. Our inaugural event will honor community member Jay Toole for her dedication and contributions. This event will also serve as a way for us to continue strengthening the ties within the LGBTQ community.

In addition to our honoree, CLAGS will be raising funds to support our current and future work.

The evening will have a full lineup of light hors d’oeuvres and drinks, raffles, a silent auction, a dance party with DJ Roze-Royce and a chance to celebrate CLAGS fellowship and scholarship recipients.

CLAGS Meet and Greet

Monday, September 17th | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 5:00PM-9:00PM | Room 5414

Graduate Center students are encouraged to join CLAGS faculty and staff for food, refreshments, and information regarding our certificate program. CLAGS is proud to offer an interdisciplinary concentration in LGBTQ studies for doctoral students at the Graduate Center, as well as an LGBTQ Studies track within the Women’s and Gender Studies MA program.

Racial Justice Higher Education Award: Statues and Resistance in the Southern Academy

Thursday, September 20 | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 5:00PM-7:00PM | Suite 6304

Maya Little, a graduate student worker at UNC, Chapel Hill, political organizer, and activist will examine the pervasive culture of anti-blackness within campus universities by focusing on ways in which racist remembrance and administrative inaction reflect and strengthen institutional racism in the Chapel Hill area. Co-sponsored with Public Science Project, Critical Social Personality Psychology, Center for Human Environments, Urban Education at the GC, Center for the Humanities, Institute for Research on the African Diaspora and the Caribbean, Center for the Study for the Study of Women and Society Women’s Studies Certificate Program, and the Social Welfare Doctoral Program at the GC.

Sexo y Revolucion” The Radical Homosexual Movements of the 1970’s

Monday, September 24th | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 6:30 PM-8:30PM | Room 8301

In an effort to historicize the recent expansion of LGBTQ rights in Latin America, Dr. Patricio Simonetto will provide examine the pioneering homosxeual movements that were active in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico between the late 1960’s and the early 1980’s, and whose legacies continue to reverberate today.

Happy Birthday Marsha! Documentary Screening & Filmmaker Talk-back

Friday, November 2nd | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM | Segal Theatre

Co-sponsored with the Doctoral Student Council, Center for Humanities, Film Studies Certificate Program join CLAGS for a screening of Happy Birthday Marsha, a documentary focusing on the life and legacy of activist and organizer Marsha P. Johnson.

After Marriage Book Reading and Panel Discussion

Monday, November 5th | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 6:30PM-8:30PM | Room 940

Please join Michael Yarborough, assistant professor of law and society at John Jay College, in a discussion on his After Marriage Equality Series, and celebration of the 2016 After Marriage conference which focused on the merits of intersectional political visions versus mainstream liberal approaches to the Trump emergency.

Community Benefit and Celebration: Honoring Jay Toole

Monday, November 12 | Macaulay Honors College | Time TBA | 35 W 67th Street New York, New York

Come and celebrate Jay Toole, long terms community leader and activist and CLAGS at this event. Details to be announced.

CLAGS Scholar in Residence: Di Wang, LGBTQ Family Rights in China

Monday, December 10th | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 6:30 PM-8:00 PM | Rooms 9204 & 9205

CLAGS’s Spring 2018 Scholar in Residence Di Wang examines the globalization of LGBTQ rights, legal mobilization and social policy in China. Drawing upon empirical data collected from field work in New York City as well as Guangzhou, China Wang uses family rights as her focal point to interrogate these critical issues.

Facebook event link: http://bit.ly/DiWang-FB

Annual Kessler Lecture and Reception: Amber Hollibaugh

Thursday, December 13th | The Graduate Center, CUNY | 6:00 PM – 9:30 PM | Proshansky Auditorium

Annual Lifetime Achievement Award in LGBTQ Studies. Award presentation & lecture followed by a reception. This year we honor Amber Hollibaugh, Senior Activist Fellow, Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Facebook event link: http://bit.ly/Kessler18-FB

Conference Date: October 1-2, 2016 | Location: John Jay College of Criminal Justice, NYC

Confirmed Plenary Speakers:

• Lisa Duggan (New York University)
• Mignon Moore (Barnard College)
• Sean Strub (The Sero Project; Founder, POZ Magazine)
• and others to be announced soon!

On June 26, 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution provides same-sex couples the civil right to marry. After the ruling, rainbow memes and #lovewins hashtags flooded the internet. But in addition to the celebration, we also began to hear more about what activists and academics have been saying for decades—that LGBTQ politics is about #morethanmarriage.

The marriage equality campaign has been criticized for limiting LGBTQ political mobilization within a narrow “homonormative” framework, making invisible all of the many pressing issues that impact diverse LGBTQ-identified individuals. Since the ruling, donations to some LGBTQ organizations have declined, and longstanding organizations have shut down.

There is an urgent need for a major public conversation about this turning point in LGBTQ politics. This conference will convene such a conversation, raising the profile of the countless similar conversations already unfolding among activists, funders, and academics in order to explore possible agendas for LGBTQ politics and scholarship after marriage.

The two-day conference will feature plenary roundtable conversations among both established and rising figures in LGBTQ politics and scholarship. The conference will also feature break-out sessions for which we are currently accepting proposals. We invite proposals for traditional academic presentations, less formal roundtable contributions, as well as wholly constituted panels, roundtables, and workshops.

We especially encourage submissions that grapple with the future of LGBTQ scholarship and/or politics from intersectional and critical perspectives. We ask all submissions to respond in some way to the specificity of this moment: How does the arrival of legal marriage equality reshape—or not—the issue you propose to discuss?

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Queer Kinship
• Queer Parenting
• Queer Communities
• Healthcare
• HIV/AIDS
• Poverty
• Education
• Policing and Incarceration
• Violence
• Polyamory
• Trans* Justice
• Socioeconomic Class and Queer Issues
• Queer People of Color
• Funding LGBTQ Work
• LGBTQ Politics outside the U.S.
• Societies without Legal Marriage Rights
• Local vs. National Political Strategies
• Lessons Learned from Marriage Campaign

For more information about this past conference.

• The Age of Promiscuity: Gay Male Sex Before AIDS (September 9, 2018)

• Lesbian Lives, Theories, & Herstories (September 17, 2015)

• Queer Sex Work in the City (September 4, 2014)

• Queer(ing) New York (May 2013)

• Queering the Frame: Transgressive Performance & the Possibility of Freedom (Octobre 22, 2013)

• Bringing Queer to the K-12 Classroom (March 31, 2012)

• Queering the Curriculum (February 4, 2012)

• The Bloomsbury Group (November 10, 2011)

• Creating LGBTQ History with OutHistory.org (December 9, 2010)

• Beijing + 15 (March 8, 2010)