The 26th edition of this conference is hosted by the University of Brighton Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender Research in collaboration with the University of Sussex, the LGBT+ Staff Network of University College Cork, and scholars from University College Dublin, and Cambridge University.
The Lesbian Lives Conference is not just the world’s most established academic conference in Lesbian Studies, it is a large international event that draws speakers and participants from all continents and hosts the best-known as well as emerging scholars in the field. In the past we have hosted Emma Donoghue, Jackie Kay, Val McDermid, Joan Nestle, Sarah Schulman, Cherry Smyth, Del La Grace Volcano, Sarah Waters, Campbell X and academics such as Sara Ahmed, Terry Castle, Laura Doan, Lisa Downing, Lillian Faderman, Sarah Franklin, Claire Hemmings, Alison Hennegan, Sally R. Munt, Susan Stryker, Helena Whitbread, Bonnie Zimmerman among many others.
The Lesbian Lives Conference is an inclusive space, open to all genders and sexual orientations. There is an ethos of welcome and accessibility.
The Lesbian Lives Conference is committed to LGBTQ+ rights and gender-inclusive research practice and has signed a comprehensive statement of support for ‘Feminists Fighting Transphobia’ accessible at: http://feministsfightingtransphobia.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/a-statement-of-trans-inclusive-feminism/
The social, cultural and artistic impact of this conference cannot be underestimated as it gathers together academics, activists, performers and writers who do not otherwise have the opportunity to address such large audiences or to network across international and professional boundaries. It is a forum for political organisation on the levels of both community activism and established international NGOs. Many books (academic and literary) and films (documentaries and dramas) are launched at this event and it is continually referenced in lesbian work and events internationally.
The conference sets the parameters for debate in the manifold disciplines that now take ‘Lesbian’ or ‘Lesbian Communities’ as the object of enquiry or as a category for analysis.
The Lesbian Lives Conference is one of the few spaces remaining to us where lesbian lives remain honoured and the focus of our dialogue and discussion. The Lesbian Lives Conference tries to construct a meeting space where we can come together, meet different people and perhaps begin to figure out and envision together what a better world would look like.
We look forward to welcoming you to the conference and to hearing the exciting papers, participating in the enlivening workshops, watching the phenomenal films and engaging in a process of learning and growth.
Saturday, March 23rd
09:00 – 09:30
Panel 12 – Touching Archives
Room: M2. Chair: Kate O’Riordan
Anna Sephton Other Lives of the Image: Collaborative Film-making in Engaging a Queer Archive from 1930s South Africa
Katherine Hubbard Queer Connections Then and Now: Me, Margaret Lowenfeld and Margaret Mead
Tuula Juvonen Creating Networks and Solidarities with Friends of Queer History
Han Tiernan Reading the Lesbian Pages from Ireland’s GCN Archive