From Knowledge to Power: Revisiting LGBTQ+ epistemologies, Professor Eric Heinze, QMUL

Since the early modern period LGBTQ+ epistemologies in the West have traversed several epistemological models: notably, theological, scientific, and social constructionist. Each of these models emerges at identifiable moments in history, yet they should be construed as cumulative and not strictly successive.

LGBTQ+ epistemology can no longer rely upon a unifying model consolidating it in opposition to an external and equally unified hegemonic power. We no longer have yet another model to toss into competition with those which have preceded. The very character of LGBTQ+ epistemology needs to change accordingly.

The lecture will last for 40 minutes and will be followed by a discussion by Professor Lisa Downing.

Professor Eric Heinze’s Short Bio

Eric Heinze is Professor of Law and Humanities at QMUL. His most recent book, The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech is Everything (2022, The MIT Press) has been nominated for: ‘The Next Big Idea’. His articles have appeared in a number of esteemed law journals such as the: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Harvard Human Rights Journal, International Theory, Modern Law Review, International Journal of Human Rights, The Journal of Comparative Law, Constitutional Commentary, the International Journal of Law in Context, Ratio Juris, Legal Studies, the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, Michigan Journal of International Law, National Black Law Journal, Journal of Social & Legal Studies, Law & Critique, and several other journals.

Professor Lisa Downing’s Short Bio

Lisa Downing is Professor of French Discourses of Sexuality at the University of Birmingham, UK. She is a specialist in interdisciplinary sexuality and feminist studies, critical theory, and the history of cultural concepts, focusing especially on questions of exceptionality, difficulty, and (ab)normality. Her most recent book-length projects are authored book, Selfish Women (Routledge, 2019) and edited collection, Critical Freedoms (Paragraph and Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Her new monograph-manifesto Against Affect, will appear in University of Nebraska Press’s ‘Provocations’ series in 2025.

Hosted by Westminster Law School

Organising Team:

Dr Anna Chronopoulou, Senior Lecturer in Law, WLS, Chair of Law and Popular Culture, Juris North

Dr Harriet Samuels, Reader in Law, WLS

Keynote Speaker:

Prof. Eric Heinze, QMUL

Discussant:

Prof. Lisa Downing,

University of Birmingham

Contact: A.Chronopoulou@westminster.ac.uk