Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Queer Trans Race Empire Symposium

Posted on 04/03/2017

For this event, Women’s & Gender Studies was proud to bring together a range of scholars who in various ways are working within queer studies and trans studies on questions related to race and empire.  The aim of the symposium was to help make connections across what otherwise can be separate fields (both disciplines and interdisciplines) and to generate conversation — among participants as well as faculty and students at UNCG — about the kinds of knowledge that can be produced through queer and trans analytics when engaging questions of race, comparative racialization, imperialism, and colonialism.

Our interest in holding such a symposium at this moment in time has to do with recent events in the state and, in light of them, our desire to illustrate the vital work performed by queer and trans scholarship; to speak to our students’ expressed interest in developing intersectional frameworks for understanding sexuality and gender identity; and to forge ahead in the face of efforts to undermine such work.

The Queer-Trans-Race-Empire symposium took place on Friday, February 24 in the Virginia Dare Room of the Alumni House and was co-sponsored by Communication Studies Department; Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations; Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; English Department; History Department; Media Studies Department; Office of Intercultural Engagement; Office of the Provost; Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Religious Studies Department; Philosophy Department.