News

2022-23:
Recent publications include an article on Ulrike Mueller's Herstory Inventory in GLQ, an article on the June Mazer Lesbian Archives at UCLA in Turning Archival (Duke 2022), and a catalogue essay for an art exhibition called Archives of Feeling at RMIT in Melbourne.

Recent talks include a keynote on covid-19 interviews with HIV/AIDS activists for a conference in Copenhagen; a keynote for Thinking with Lauren Berlant at the Banff Center for the Arts; and the annual lecture for the Centre for the Study of the History of Emotions at Queer Mary University in London (where I also co-hosted a writing workshop with the fabulous Lois Weaver).

Forthcoming publications include an essay on "minor feelings" in writing by Billy-Ray Belcourt and Cathy Park Hong for a new version of the Affect Studies Reader (coming from Duke in fall 2023); a catalogue essay for Benny Nemer's I Know Where Paradise Is; and another one for Jess Dobkin's Wetrospective.

I'm very happy that Julie Hollenbach and Robin McDonald have borrowed my concept of the "bibliographic altar" for workshop presentations.  I made a little video for them that explains the concept, which is a close cousin to the "archive of feelings" but with a bit more folk Catholicism/spiritual animism thrown in.  

I wrote blurbs for the following books and would like to recommend them here as well:
Nicholas Dawson (trans. David Bradford), House Within A House, Brick Books
Zeynep Korkman, Gendered Fortunes, Duke UP
Joan Nestle, A Sturdy Yes of People, Sinister Wisdom Press
Anne Whitehead, Relating Suicide, Bloomsbury Press
Laura Hughes, Archival Afterlives, Northwestern UP

Spring/Summer 2022:
Recent publications include an essay on Billy-Ray Belcourt's poetry for a special issue of Feminist Theory on loneliness; a short essay on "Covid Silver Linings" for a collection of pandemic keywords in Theory and Event.

Recent talks include keynote presentations at the Sexuality Studies Association conference, the Concordia University grad student conference Pandemic at the Disco, and a panel on Radical Disciplinarity at Univ of Toronto.

I was interviewed for a Smithsonian Archives of American Art podcast focused on the work of Catherine Opie.

Fall 2021:
Recent publications include an essay on the indigenous presence in my affective turn in an edited collection On Being Adjacent to Historical Violence (ed. Irene Kacandes); an essay on the sovereignty of the senses and queer feminist environmental installations for a special issue of Feminist Media Histories on affect; and an update on The Alphabet of Feeling Bad for a collection on Re/Imagining Depression:  Creative Approaches to Feeling Bad (eds. McDonald and Hollenbach).

Brief essays in memory of Lauren Berlant can be found online at Capacious and Critical Inquiry.

My concept of the "bibliographic altar" was the focus for a workshop on "Feelings, Objects, Altars:  Using the bibliographic altar to explore depression."

The Alphabet of Feeling Bad (video collaboration with Karin Michalski) was shown in recent exhibitions at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland, and at the feminist queer cultural center District in Berlin. 

Spring/Summer 2021 Events:
I have talks (via Zoom) at a symposium on Affective Worldmaking in Graz, Austria, on Toppling Things in Barcelona, Spain, and on contemporary literature in Durham, UK, in addition to having given talks at the Jan 2021 MLA conference online.   In summer 2021, I presented at conference on Lesbian and Gay Studies at ICS in Berlin, and at a conference on Film and Trauma, also in Berlin.

My essay on the Robert Lynch Papers at Cornell's Human Sexuality Collection has just been published by The Baffler and is available online.

Covid-19 Related Events and Materials:
I have an interview forthcoming with the Breathable Futures Today project, and I will be doing interviews for Columbia University's NYC Covid-19 Oral History, Narrative and Memory Archive. My work is also included in the Chisenhale Gallery's reading list, which focuses on past and present-day resistance and resilience.

Recent Publications:
Recently, I published essays in Inside Killjoy's Kastle: Dykey Ghosts, Feminist Monsters, and Other Lesbian Hauntings (2019), Public Spheres of Resonance: Constellations of Affect and Language (2019), and Museums, Sexuality, and Gender Activism (2020). My writing also appears in Eastern Europe Unmapped: Beyond Borders and Peripheries (2017, 2019), which has recently been released in a paperback edition. 

2020 Events:
Feminist Media Histories Workshop: Affect [online — May 15, 2020 — 10 am - 2 pm (PST)]:
I will be participating in a celebration of Feminist Media Histories' transition to Seattle. Originally planned as a two-day in-person workshop at the University of Washington, this event has moved online with presentations by several speakers.  

Older Items

Fall 2019 Lecture at EMPAC:
In November, I presented "Artist Curation as Queer Archival Practice" at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). 

Spring and Summer 2019 Travels:
I presented the Florence Bird Lecture 2019 at Carleton University, “Artist Curation as Queer and Decolonial Museum Practice: Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice,” in March.
 
In April, I participated in the Harry Ransom Center’s 13th biennial Flair Symposium, “Ethical Challenges in Cultural Stewardship,” and the Affect, Fluid, Flux Conference in Strasbourg, France. I also presented “Archival Turns and Queer Affective Methods” and held a writing workshop on “Writing as Archive Practice,” at the University of Michigan.
 
I gave a performance / lecture “What Will Become of Lesbian Chic?” for Lesbopalooza and Stonewall 50 in NYC in June.
 
In July, I presented at the Society for the Study of Affect’s Summer School, Animations and Provocations, at Millersville University. 

2019: Move to Carleton University:
I am currently Director of the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's and Gender Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

2017-18: LGBTQ Studies Program at Univ of Texas:
I was the inaugural director of a new LGBTQ Studies Program at UT in 2017-18.   We launched the program with a symposium on Queer Camaraderie in January 2018.

2017: Recent Publications:
“The Balkan Notebooks.”  In eds. Juliya Komska and Irene Kacandes,  Eastern Europe Unmapped:  Beyond Borders and Peripheries, Berghahn Books, 2017.

A short piece title "Ephemera" from my ongoing research in the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives at UCLA was published in Lexicon for an Affective Archive, eds. Guilia Palladini and Marco Pustianaz, Intellect Books.  

"Depression and Disability," a conversation with Abby Wilkerson on the relation between disability studies and my Depression book, Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 13:4 (December 2016), 497-503.

Fall 2016 and Spring/Summer 2017 Travels:
School of Art Institute of Chicago; University of Chicago (writing workshop), American Studies Association Meetings; American Academy of Religion Meetings (panel on my work); Queens University; Affect and Language conference in Berlin; Gender and Culture conference in Paris; Summer School in Belgrade, Serbia.  

Expanding the Archive:  Elaborating the Work of Ann Cvetkovich
My work was the subject of a panel organized by the Sacred Texts, Theory, and Theological Construction Group at the American Academy of Religion Meetings in San Antonio in November 2016.

Featured in Bitch Magazine
Depression:  A Public Feeling was mentioned on a list of things to look out for!

Spring and Summer 2016 Travels:
Baltimore (MICA, Queer Craft exhibition), UCLA, Wesleyan, U of Ottawa, Drew Theological School (Affectivity and Divinity), Pittsburgh (Doing the Body), Toronto Writing Workshop, NAISA (Native American and Indigenous Studies Conference), LGBTQ ALMS (Archives, Libraries, Museums, Special Collections) conference in London, workshpp on the reparative in Cardiff, Wales.  (Details on Events page.)

New Publication:  "Writing with The Alphabet of Feeling Bad" in Walking Beside:  Challenging the Role of Emotions in Normalization, eds. Eva Soderberg and Sara Nyhlen.  (See Writings page.)
​
Unhappy Archives and The Alphabet of Feeling Bad in Germany
Art exhibition featuring my books and those of many other queer affect theory fellow travelers, as well as "The Alphabet of Feeling Bad," the theory/performance film I made with Karin Michalski.  (See News page for fuller info on these projects.)

Interview on CBC Radio's Ideas from the Trenches
I was interviewed about public feelings for a program showcasing Stephen Wittek's dissertation on early modern theatre and the news.

Interview about 2014-15 Cornell Society for the Humanities Fellowship 
I'll be in Ithaca next year working on the theme of "Sensation."

Publication of Feeling Photography
Collection edited by Elspeth Brown and Thy Phu featuring my article on Tammy Rae Carland and Zoe Leonard.

Bossing Images workshop on Toxic
My report on an event featuring Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz's film Toxic and theorist Mel Chen organized by Bossing Images for Art and Affect in Frieburg Germany.

Interview with Lydia Perovic in Daily Xtra:  click here

Interview with Linden Kueck on UTexas Dept of English website:  click here

Elaine Showalter on Depression:  A Public Feeling in The Chronicle Review
An interesting discussion of my book in Elaine Showalter's review essay on anxiety in American culture.

Otherwise:  Queer Scholarship Into Song
in The New York Times  
Read the review of Kay Turner's musical revue/ book party featuring the unconventional transformation of recently released queer scholarly works into original songs -- in which "lessons are otherwise learned and you go home humming an academic tome!!"   Featuring not only my book but many other recent releases, including Lisa Cohen's All We Know, Carolyn Dinshaw's How Soon is Now?, Barbara Browning's I'm Trying to Reach You, forthcoming books by Ann Pellegrini and Tavia N'yongo, and many more -- including Kay's own Transgressive Tales:  Queering the Grimms, which gives you the queer fairy tales you always wanted.  See "News" for more details.

Lambda Literary Awards Finalist!
Depression:  A Public Feeling is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Studies category.

One-Sentence Review in The New York Times 
Depression:  A Public Feeling got a one-sentence review in The New York Times Sunday Magazine:  "Aesthetics, anecdotes and evidence against the medical model."