Queering Elements, Ecologies, Environments: Two-Day Symposium

For decades now, queer and trans scholars have been exploring how matters of gender and sexuality are also matters of ecology and environment. On the one hand, this has meant attending to how discourses of the ‘natural’ ground cis-heteronormativity, and to how cis-heteronormativity often grounds popular environmentalism. But it has extended far beyond this to complex accounts of how categories of gender, sexuality, race and the human are produced within agentic entangled worlds of more-than-human life and in/organic matter. Turning to ecologies and environments—the ‘natural world’—has helped further explore questions about extraction, exploitation, extinction, reproduction, health and purity that have always been concerns of queer and trans scholars.

While this field is one that is international in scope, many of the field forming texts and conversations have emerged from North America--as is the case with many facets of queer scholarship. At the same time, amongst scholars working on queer topics in the UK, there is increasing energy behind ecological and environmental questions–reflected in a range of recent research, journal special issues and conferences.

This two-day symposium at the University of St Andrews will create space to further foster this work. Our participants are: Matt Barlow (UPenn), Hannah Boast (Edinburgh), Natalia Cecire (Sussex), Ariadne Collins (St Andrews), Grace Garland (Edinburgh), Katharina Hunfeld (St Andrews), Sneha Krishnan (Oxford), Roxani Krystalli (St Andrews), Rowan Lear (Un/Nature Reading Group), Nat Raha (Glasgow School of Art), Sam Solomon (Sussex), Nat Walpole (Un/Nature Reading Group). Including: guided walk in the St Andrews Botanic Garden and reading group session with Un/Nature Reading Group (Glasgow).

Some questions we will explore include: How can we engage the animality of the human in the full knowledge that the animalisation of some humans has long been a strategy of genocide? How might queer and trans theory’s long-standing problematisation of ‘nature’ and the ‘natural’ be mobilised in alliance with decolonial and Indigenous studies?What might it mean to revisit these critiques in the face of the anthropogenic destruction of ‘nature’? What insights, opportunities and problems are generated by ‘entanglement’ as a mode of relationality and of theorising ontology? What can we learn from queer and trans readings of planetary elements – earth, water, fire, air and more?

'Queering Elements, Ecologies, Environment' is the fourth in a series of networking events hosted by the AHRC-funded network 'Beyond Radical: Queer Theory and the UK'. 'Beyond Radical' aims to make space in the UK for anyone interested in the continued interrogation and development of queer theory.

www.manchester.ac.uk/beyondradical

Further practicalities:

• For the full draft programme, click HERE
• On Friday 14th June, there will be a reading group session: readings are HERE
  
• Vegan and gluten free catering will be provided across the two days
  
• Please mention any specific access or dietary requirements when registering
  
• By registering for this event you agree to our code of conduct below

Code of conduct

Our aim is to promote open dialogue, academic debate and critical discussion in a way that is both compassionate and respectful. We do not accept racism, colourism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, ableism, transphobia, classism, ageism, xenophobia,
fatphobia/sizeism, or any other form of prejudice. If any attendees experience any of these forms of prejudice, they are encouraged to report it to members of the 'Beyond Radical' network steering group.