MLA 2024: Queer Theory and Psychoanalysis (Guaranteed Panel) UPDATE

deadline for submissions: 
March 29, 2023
full name / name of organization: 
Dorothy Stringer
contact email: 

The MLA’s Forum on Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Literature solicits abstracts for a guaranteed panel at the January 2024 MLA Convention in Philadelphia on queer theory and psychoanalysis. We particularly welcome theoretical and archival scholarship that centers LGBTQI+ theorists, artists, intellectuals, and writers.

Queer theory embraces psychoanalysis and its speculative concepts as crucial elements of counter-identitarian critical practice. Yet the relationship between these two fields remains under-examined. Topics of particular interest include:

  • Queer theory as an influence on psychoanalytic theory and/or clinical practice
  • Contemporary and historical queer critiques of psychoanalysis, especially lesser-known and extra-canonical critiques
  • Psychoanalytic eclecticism in queer theory; eclectic queer theorists such as the late Leo Bersani
  • Historical and contemporary psychoanalytic homo- and transphobia

Submit 300-word abstracts and one-page CV to Dorothy Stringer (dorothy@temple.edu) by March 24, 2023.