Intersections: An Inaugural Black Queer Sexuality Studies Conference

I just learned about a conference that seems really amazing- it’s called “Intersections: An Inaugural Black Queer Sexuality Studies Graduate Student Conference,” and it will take place on October 20th at Princeton University. Conference organizers are still seeking project proposals- the deadline for abstract submissions is this Friday, the 31st. Contact information for submitting a proposal can be found here. The keynote speaker will be Kara Keeling, a professor of cinematic arts at the University of Southern California and author of the book The Witch’s Flight: The Cinematic, the Black Femme, and the Image of Common Sense.

According to the call for papers, Intersections “seeks to create a public forum for dialogue on innovative research across disciplines and fields that interrogate the intersections between blackness and queerness. Against an abjuring history, we ask: how might we understand the relationship between blackness and queerness if we first reject the premise of their mutual exclusivity? How might transit between blackness and queerness open up new pathways of thought to engage thinking concerned with a host of issues ranging from agency to temporality to phenomenology to resistance?  Are we in a post-black or post-queer moment, and if so, how might a reinterrogation of both blackness and queerness reanimate supposedly deadened modes of inquiry?”

I’m going to try to make it to the conference myself- I presented at a conference at Princeton once, it was a really great experience (and the area is gorgeous).