Wednesday, 15 May 2019 at 6:00 pm – Wednesday, 15 May 2019 at 7:30 pm
Unbuilding Gender: Trans* Anarchitectures in and Beyond the Work of Gordon Matta Clark
Date: Wednesday 15th May 2019
Time: 6pm - 7.30pm
Location: Geoffrey Manton Building, LT4, Rosamond St West, Manchester
Tickets: FREE - Available on Eventbrite
Jack Halberstam - Unbuilding Gender: Trans* Anarchitectures in and Beyond the Work of Gordon Matta Clark
Today, I want to think with you about the new politics of trans* as opposed to arguing for the new inclusion of transgender bodies in an expanded understanding of gender. The category of trans* takes the prefix for transitivity and couples it with the asterix that indicates a wildcard in internet searches; it is a diacritical mark that poses a question to its prefix and stands in for what exceeds the politics of naming. So, to investigate trans* representation, as I will be doing here, is also to propose that something within trans* representations exceeds our current ways of framing gender variance. In keeping with older work of mine from The Queer Art of Failure, I will be arguing for the unmaking of the world and in relation to new work on wildness, I will explore anarchic modes of breaking down the structures that currently confine us.
Biography
Jack Halberstam is Professor of Gender Studies and English at Columbia University. Halberstam is the author of six books including: Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Duke UP, 1995), Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998), In A Queer Time and Place (NYU Press, 2005), The Queer Art of Failure (Duke UP, 2011) and Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon Press, 2012) and, most recently, a short book titled Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variance (University of California Press). Places Journal awarded Halberstam its Arcus/Places Prize in 2018 for innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality and the built environment. Halberstamis currently working on several projects including a book titled WILD THING: QUEER THEORY AFTER NATURE on queer anarchy, performance and protest culture the intersections between animality, the human and the environment.
About the Queer Research Network
The Queer Research Network Manchester is a new interdisciplinary research network that aims to bring together postgraduate researchers working with queer themes across the Manchester universities. We host regular discussion and reading groups for PhD students and organise bi-monthly events and speakers.
The Queer Research Network Manchester is co-convened by Lois Stone from Manchester University and Sarah-Joy Ford from Manchester Metropolitan University. For more information about what we do, event listings and to sign up to our mailing list; please visit our website: https://qrnm.home.blog/