Title: Queer & Trans Negativity Symposium
When and Where: Friday, May 1st, 2026, from 10AM-5PM in 100, Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5R 2M8
Description:
The Jackman Humanities Institute Working Group on Queer & Trans Negativity is pleased to announce the Queer & Trans Negativity Symposium, a two-day symposium that will take place at Innis College and the Jackman Humanities Building on April 30th-May 1st, 2026.
Professor Damon R. Young (French and Film & Media, UC Berkeley) will give our keynote address, which is entitled “Queer Cinema and the Nothing,” on April 30th in Innis Town Hall, while a day of panels is slated for May 1st in the Jackman Humanities Building. Join us for generative discussions on queer and trans studies’ long preoccupation with negativity, its potentialities and limitations, how negativity (and its refutation) impact our understanding of queer and trans art, cinema, and literature, and what, if queer and trans studies tend towards negativity, matters at the end of it all.
Registration: This is a free public event
Contact information:
Kanika Lawton (kanika.lawton@mail.utoronto.ca)
Avneet Sharma (avneet.sharma@mail.utoronto.ca)
Sponsors:
Jackman Humanities Institute
University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union
Cinema Studies Institute