PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF VENUE FOR THE OPENING SESSION FEATURING GAYLE RUBIN,
MARCH 4TH 7:30-9:30 PM:
TALK WILL NOW TAKE PLACE AT HARRISON AUDITORIUM IN THE PENN MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY


Twenty-five years ago, Gayle Rubin's essay "Thinking Sex" (1984) inaugurated the contemporary field of sexuality studies. This state of the field conference, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, will bring Rubin together with thirty other key figures in gender and sexuality studies to consider the history of the field as well as its current strengths and potential. What are the intellectual and political gains of movements for sexual freedom over the past three decades? And where are we now?

The conference will feature panels, conversations, and roundtable sessions on Wednesday evening, Thursday, and Friday. Topics will include activism and scholarship, sexuality studies and academic disciplines, global sexualities, the relations between feminism and LGBT/queer studies, queer of color critique, historiography, sexual practice and community, scholarly generations, new forms of kinship, transgender studies, queer media, gay neoliberalism, disability studies, queer diasporas, affect, and pedagogy.


You can find the full program here.

Sponsored by:

The Provost’s Office at the University of Pennsylvania, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the Mellon Foundation, the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the University Research Fund Conference Fund (Penn), the School of Arts and Sciences (Penn), Penn University Press, Graduate School of Education (Penn), the Annenberg Scholars Program in Culture and Communication (Penn), the Law School (Penn), English (Penn), Germanic Languages and Literatures (Penn), History (Penn), History of Art (Penn), South Asia Studies (Penn), Music (Penn), Africana Studies (Penn), Latino and Latin American Studies Program (Penn), Asian American Studies Program (Penn), Anthropology (Penn), Cinema Studies Program (Penn), the South Asia Center (Penn), Romance Languages (Penn), the Gender and Sexuality Studies Reading Group (Penn English), and the Poetics Working Group (Penn English).