gender studies and sexuality

Since 1991 the Pulitzer Prize has been awarded to four novels that reimagined literary works that have long been a part of the canon. They are: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (a contemporary King Lear); March by Geraldine Brooks (Little Women from the perspective of the absent father); Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (David Copperfield set in Appalachia); and James by Percival Everett (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim). This panel looks to open a discussion about how these and other contemporary novels both explore and challenge the themes of the source material. What do they say about society, race, gender, feminism, and marginalization?

Queer Theory in the Age of Global Asias: An International Conference December 11-12, 2026 University of Hong Kong In the last two decades, queer theory has shifted from theoretical focuses on shame, performativity, and identification to questions of transnationalism, diaspora, queer liberalism, homonormativity, and homonationalism. Simultaneously, when US-based queer theorists (Eng, Ferguson, Gopinath, Munoz, etc.) devised new models such as queer of color critique and queer diaspora to name the alternative subjectivities and telos of modernity beyond queer liberalism, the AsiaPacifiQueer (APQ) network based in Australia collaborated with queer scholars in Asia to organize the First International Conference of Asian Queer Studies in Bangkok in July 2005.

In both her life and her literary work, American writer Edith Wharton was a keen observer and recorder of the interrelationship(s) between power and community at the end of the 19th century and throughout the early decades of the 20th. Born into the world of wealth and privilege of “Old New York” society, Wharton grew weary of its longstanding communal norms and constraints. At the same time, however, she was also openly critical of the ostentation and conspicuous consumption on display during the annual Newport, RI “summer season.”

Transnational Feminisms have emerged out of the need for women’s groups to address oppression that crosses national borders and to build solidarities rooted in an exploration of the articulation between the local and the global. These forms of feminisms examine the ways in which women’s groups transcend location beyond national boundaries to address their political and ideological struggles, exploring the interrelationships between discrete factors such as caste, class, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, age, and multiple other positionalities and contexts of inequalities as they overlap and are shaped by neoliberal economic and political forces, patriarchies and various other systems of stratification.

Drawing inspiration from Adrienne Rich's seminal book Of Woman Born (1976), in 2006, Andrea O'Reilly coined the term "Motherhood Studies" and established a new interdisciplinary academic field aimed at studying "motherhood" as an institution and "mothering" as an experience. O'Reilly emphasized the importance of adopting a feminist framework designed expressly for mothers: a "matricentric feminism" necessary for an intersectional exploration of motherhood. Within "Motherhood Studies," being or not being a mother matters, and the experience of motherhood is treated as a category alongside gender, class, and race.

Florentina Holzinger & Co: Performing Pleasure, Risk and Rapture 

Guest Editors 

Dr Charlotte Farrell (University of New South Wales, Sydney) 

Dr Anna Laura Wieczorek (Mozarteum University, Salzburg) 

Special Issue of Contemporary Theatre Review Call for Papers 

Following the death of Marjane Satrapi, this session examines her legacy through the lens of graphic resistance, considering questions of form, memory, politics, religion, gender, and emancipation in her comics and their afterlives.

https://mla.confex.com/mla/2027/webprogrampreliminary/Paper36481.htm

Queer as Method:

Transdisciplinary Approaches to Art, Research and Resistance

an online transdisciplinary conference

September 11-12, 2026

Online, Via Zoom

Conference Webpage: https://labrc.co.uk/2026/06/15/queer-as-method/

Proposal deadline: August 15, 2026

As the section editor for The Queer Experience, I invite you to submit a chapter proposal for consideration to be included in The American Research Handbook on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, an edited scholarly volume that examines the evolving role of diversity, equity, and inclusion within American democracy and educational institutions.

The Queer Experience Section Seeks:

• Well-researched and evidence-based analyses that examine gender identity, sexuality, intersectionality, and/or the evolving role(s) of queer people in society at the present moment.

We invite proposals for an anthology about drag in Appalachia. The collection aims to explore drag’s artistry, history, and cultural power. We welcome scholars, performers, and community storytellers whose work illuminates the region’s queer lineages, traditions, politics, creativity, and beyond. We especially invite pieces that examine drag as labor, community care, spiritual practice, historical reclamation, or engagement with Appalachia’s diverse cultural landscapes.

“Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets”
- ANDY WARHOL

SAVE THE DATE

Alternative Endings:
A Symposium Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman

October 17, 2026

Northwestern University--Downtown Campus
Chicago, Illinois

Join scholars, filmmakers, artists for a one-day symposium commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of Cheryl Dunye's groundbreaking film The Watermelon Woman.

The symposium will feature:

• A special panel showcasing previously unreleased alternative endings from the film, with commentary from invited scholars.

• A luncheon bringing together contributors to the film, panelists, and local Black women filmmakers.

Illness is rarely a purely private experience, yet for women it has historically been rendered invisible: sequestered within domestic walls, dismissed by medical institutions, and silenced in the cultural record. This session examines how film and literature in Spanish and Portuguese bring female sickness out of the shadows, transforming what is often hidden and isolated into a site of testimony, intimacy, and meaning.

Proposals for edited book on 21st cent. Women Poets and Resistance

We –a group of scholars and poets– are assembling a collective book on 21st century Women's Poetries, which will be submitted as an edited collection for one of the series at Palgrave Macmillan. Two of our contributors fell down and we are trying to find a couple of good proposals which can be a good fit and complete our collection.