Queer & Trans Negativity Working Group
Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto
April 30th–May 1st, 2026
Keynote Speaker: Damon Young (University of California, Berkeley)
Call for Papers: Queer & Trans Negativity Symposium
The Jackman Humanities Institute Working Group on Queer & Trans Negativity is pleased to announce the Queer & Trans Negativity Symposium, which will take place in-person at the Jackman Humanities Institute on April 30–May 1, 2026. We are delighted to have Damon Young, Associate Professor of French and Film & Media at the University of California, Berkeley, as our keynote speaker.
Queer and trans studies have long been preoccupied with negativity. Propulsively emerging as a site of contentious, intradisciplinary discourse during the 2005 MLA Annual Convention, where the antisocial thesis proposed by theorists such as Lee Edelman and Jack Halberstam bristled against the queer utopianism made popular by José Esteban Muñoz and Tim Dean, negativity has continued to shape the contours of queer theory today. This includes its relevance as a field of inquiry, prompting Edelman to polemically argue that queer theory teaches us nothing, while Dean forcefully argues that the antisocial thesis is “unkillable.” Following Leo Bersani, negation has become a tool for resisting heteronormative social formations (Edelman, Halberstam) or an initial step towards conceptualizing alternative modes of community formation (Bersani, Dean, Muñoz). There is even tension amongst the negativity versus optimism camps with differing emphases on social negation (Halberstam, Muñoz) or on ontological negation (Edelman, Dean). These debates have become so widespread that it feels as though every emerging queer theorist must stake their own position.
At the same time, trans studies can be said to have emerged from a negative positionality originating from entrenched institutional transphobia and medical gatekeeping, which demands the performance of “genuine” bodily discomportment for the purpose of cis acceptance. One can look at Sandy Stone’s foundational “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto” as symptomatic of where trans studies has been and continues to be taken for: as queer theory’s “evil twin,” following Susan Stryker; as aberration of (trans-exclusionary) feminism; as a field whose objects of study take on socio-political weight far beyond the academy. Relatedly, the continuous institutionalization of trans studies as a discipline ripe for interfield debates (is it distinct from queer theory? Gender studies? Feminism writ-large?) may mask intrafield debates over its own claims to institutional rigour. Following Cameron Awkward-Rich, trans studies’ attempts to disavow its historical co-emergence with disability and mad studies both drive its move towards disciplinary "legitimacy" and the coopting of the “good” trans subject-as-object-of-study. What would it mean for trans studies to refuse such posturing towards the “good” in a turn back to its roots in negativity?
We are interested, then, in deepening the discursivity that negativity produces across queer and trans studies by gathering scholars in cinema and media studies, art history, visual studies, and literature to create generative frictions together. While we take negativity as a focal point in the organization of this symposium, our goal is not to endorse it wholesale. Rather, we hope to also address critiques of negativity’s place in queer and trans studies, as well as turn toward other branches of negativity, including suicidality, finitude, dispossession, censorship, and other discursive and existential limits. Through discussion and debate, we hope to address the following questions: why has negativity taken such a hold on queer and trans studies? What are negativity’s potentialities and limitations? How does negativity (and its refutation) impact our understanding of queer and trans art, cinema, and literature? And lastly, if queer and trans studies tend towards negativity, what matters at the end of it all?
Sample topics might include but are not limited to:
- The “antisocial thesis” and responses to it
- Aesthetics, ethics, and politics in queer and trans studies
- Queer and trans approaches to art, literature, and cinema
- Psychoanalytic and philosophical approaches to gender and sexuality
- Pessimism and its potentialities
- The problem of “sex” in psychoanalysis, feminism, and queer and trans theory
Submission details:
Please submit a brief abstract (300-500 words) and a bio (50-100 words) to both of the symposium co-organizers: Avneet Sharma and Kanika Lawton by March 1, 2026, 11:59PM EST. Submissions should include full name, preferred pronouns (optional), name of institution (if applicable), paper title, abstract, bio, and a 3-5 item bibliography. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by late March.
Please direct questions to Avneet and Kanika. We look forward to reviewing your abstracts and welcoming you to the University of Toronto this spring!
Upcoming Conferences
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Formations Keynote Speaker: Jodie Mack (Dartmouth College) |
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Queer & Trans Negativity Symposium Thursday, April 30 - Friday, May 01, 2026 Keynote Speaker: Damon Young (UC Berkeley) |
Past Conferences
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Exit Signs, Signs of Exit Keynote Speaker: Jean-Thomas Tremblay, York University |
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Fragmentation Keynote Speaker: Maggie Hennefeld, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities |
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Bad Objects Keynote Speaker: Cáel M. Keegan |
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Altered States Keynote Speaker: Kemi Adeyemi, University of Washington |
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Spectre Keynote Speaker: David Marriott, Penn State |
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Friendship Keynote Speaker: Salomé Skvirksy, University of Chicago |
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Fluidity Keynote Speaker: Luka Arsenjuk, University of Maryland |
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Vanishing Points Keynote Speaker: Eric Cazdyn, University of Toronto |
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The Unknown Keynote Speakers: Markos Hadjioannou, Duke University; John Greyson, York University |