Deion Dresser, "Beyond the Binary: Reimagining Sexual Difference through Relational Ontologies"

This paper critically examines a fundamental concept of Italian feminisms, il pensiero della differenza sessuale, focusing on its limitations in addressing non-binary and trans identities. While dismantling patriarchal subjectivities, foundational thinkers like Luce Irigaray and Carla Lonzi remain more tied to binary frameworks, leaving the theory vulnerable to charges of exclusion. Engaging with Diotima’s praxis of affidamento, identity is reframed as a relational, co-constructed phenomenon, rather than a static, biologically determined essence. This relational ontology, while rooted in women’s experiences, possesses transformative potential to transcend essentialist categories and accommodate multiplicity. Adriana Cavarero’s theory of narrative identity complements this perspective, proposing subjectivity as a contingent, relational process. By rejecting biological determinism and fixed categories, these frameworks could destabilize the binary logic of sexual difference. Positioned as ethical interventions, they critique essentialist dualisms and propose an inclusive, dynamic model of identity that incorporates non-binary and trans experiences, expanding this strand of feminist thought toward greater inclusivity and relational complexity.

Hank Owings, "Love Thy Neighbor: Christian Embodiment, Heteropatriarchal Fantasies, & Queer Anxieties"

This dissertation chapter examines the theological foundations of rightwing populism. More specifically, I argue that a political theology of affect, a way of disciplining how one feels about the body so as to establish communal moods, motivates an emotional and moral economy constitutive of rightwing social hierarchies. Certain bodies that express emotional deviance – the feminist woman, queer and trans bodies, and the working poor – are what Sara Ahmed refers to as “affect aliens” in this Christian economy. Affect aliens disturb what Lauren Berlant refers to as the "sovereignist fantasies" of rightwing theology and consequently embody existential threats that Christian disciplines - coded as "loving" - are meant to correct. Heteronormative, faithful, working men are encouraged to use institutions, the law or the church, to demonstrate tough "love" against these threats and thereby encourage their return to “feeling” their bodies in the right way. The only women, laborers, and queer folks embraced by this moral economy are those who righteously suffer by suppressing their urges and channeling their feelings toward Christian ends. This argument proceeds through an analysis of over eighty public-facing Christian books on gender, sexuality, and the economy by rightwing Calvinist and Catholic publishers. That conservative Christians embrace rightwing populism politically is not a deviation from their faith, but fundamental to the disciplinary attitude at the heart of their corporeal theology.

A Zoom link and copies of Deion and Hank's papers will be shared with attendees before the event.