The Queer Theory Reading Group presents a mini-seminar and a book talk by Emma Heaney


 Comparative Literature     Mar 14 2018 - Mar 15 2018 | 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM HG 1010, March 14; HG 1030, March 15

Please join the Queer Theory Reading Group for a mini-seminar and a book talk by Emma Heaney, author of The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and The Trans Feminine Allegory.

The New Woman traces the development of medical and criminological knowledge that claimed to explain the existence of trans femininity in the late nineteenth century. The book suggests that this process produced a fissure between trans feminine meaning as established by doctors who considered themselves experts on the phenomenon of trans femininity and trans feminine existence as it was lived and understood by trans women. The New Woman traces the parallel historical development of expert and vernacular knowledge into two domains that staged the encounter between what cis experts say trans women mean and what trans women say about their experiences: works of Literary Modernism and works of Queer Theory. These novels and theoretical texts help us to understand the development of conceptual forms through which cis people have consistently --- and with intermittently renewed vigor as we’ve seen in the recent spate of anti-trans legislation --- identified trans women’s existence as a topic that can be debated and should be disallowed. This book talk will describe the genesis and development of this project, present its argument with passages from the book, and suggest connections between The New Woman and other recent books.

Emma Heaney is Assistant Professor of English at William Patterson University. She is an alumnus of the Comparative Literature program at UCI.

The mini-seminar will feature discussion of the beginning of The New Woman, and C. Riley Snorton's Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, and will take place Wednesday, March 14, 2-4 PM in HG 1010. Please see attached flyer for pages and access.

The book talk will take place on Thursday, March 15 from 2-4 PM, followed by a reception, in HG 1030.
These events are sponsored by the Queer Theory Reading Group (QTRG) at UC Irvine, with support from the departments of English and Comparative Literature; Poetics/ History/ Theory; and Postmodern Culture.
 

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