Trans/Forming Knowledge Symposium - Chicago, IL

TRANS/FORMING KNOWLEDGE:

THE IMPLICATIONS OF TRANSGENDER STUDIES FOR WOMEN'S, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES

Transgender Studies Symposium
Thursday and Friday, February 16-17, 2006

The emergence of transgender studies in recent years has raised far-reaching questions about the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of gender, womens, queer, and sexuality studies. This day-long symposium invites you to consider the significance and implications of these questions by engaging in a sustained, interdisciplinary conversation with four of the fields leading scholars.

TRANS/FORMING KNOWLEDGE is being organized by the Center for Gender Studies with additional support from the Center's Lesbian and Gay Studies Project.

**This event is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is not required.**

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Thursday, February 16, 8 p.m.,
Location:
Biological Sciences 109
924 E. 57th Street

Screening of Susan Stryker's Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria. Followed by a discussion with the director.

Friday, February 17,
Social Sciences 122
1126 E. 59th Street

In the morning session, two of the field's founders, the sociologist Aaron Devor and historian Susan Stryker, will discuss the origins and development of trans studies in relation to social, political and critical theoretical developments of the last twenty years. In the afternoon, a women's historian, Joanne Meyerowitz, and feminist theorist, Judith Halberstam, will reflect on how their engagement with trans subjects and theories has led them to reassess some of the major tenets of gender and sexuality studies. Each session will include substantial time for discussion, so as to foster a sustained conversation that will develop over the course of the day.

*REVISED SCHEDULE.*

10:00 -10:30 Registration

10:30-12:30 Morning Session
The Intersectional Origins and Developments of Transgender Studies

George Chauncey, University of Chicago
Welcome and Introduction

Aaron Devor, University of Victoria
Seeking Gender (in)Difference

Susan Stryker, co-editor, The Routledge Transgender Studies Reader (2006)
(De)Subjugated Knowledges: The Recent Emergence of Transgender Studies

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30- 3:30 Afternoon Session
The Implications of Transgender Studies

Joanne Meyerowitz, Yale University
A New History of Gender

Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California
Rethinking Feminist and Queer Theory

3:45- 4:45 Roundtable

5:00 Reception



SPEAKERS

Aaron Devor is a professor of Sociology and Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada. He has been studying transgenderism for more than twenty years and has had an interest in feminist, gay, and lesbian issues for close to forty years. He is the author of two books, Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989) and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997), and numerous scholarly articles and book chapters. He was also one of the major authors of the most recent revisions to the controversial Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association's "Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders - Sixth Version." His present research focuses on the life of transgendered philanthropist Reed Erickson and the Erickson Educational Foundation (1964-84) through which he provided unparalleled leadership in the development of support, education, advocacy, and research about transsexualism as well as invaluable support to the early gay rights organization ONE Inc.

Judith Halberstam is a Professor of English and Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Southern California. Halberstam has written several books about variant gendering: Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998), The Drag King Book (Serpent's Tail, 1999), In A Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (NYU Press, 2005). Halberstam has also contributed essays on gender and popular culture to BITCH Magazine, The NATION and GIRLFRIENDS Magazine. She is currently working on a book titled: "Dude, Where's My Theory? The Politics of Knowledge in an Age of Stupidity."

Joanne Meyerowitz is a professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Her most recent books are How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States (Harvard, 2002) and the edited collection History and September 11th (Temple, 2003). From 1999 to 2004, she served as the editor of the Journal of American History. She is currently working on a project with the tentative title, "Explaining Difference: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Mid-Twentieth-Century Social Thought."

Susan Stryker is an internationally-recognized independent scholar of sexuality and gender who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to numerous works of popular queer history, she was contributing editor of GLQ's 1998 transgender studies special issue and co-editor, with Stephen Whittle, of The Routledge Transgender Studies Reader (2006). Most recently, with colleague Victor Silverman, she wrote, directed and produced Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria, a public television documentary about a little-known transgender revolt in 1966.

Information on getting to campus