Prof. Emma Heaney, William Paterson University, will trace the development of her work from her first to her current project. Her first book, The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory (Northwestern UP, 2017), traces the creation and significance of the trans feminine as an allegorical figure from its origins in nineteenth-century sexological writing to subsequent writings in psychoanalysis, modernist fiction, and contemporary Queer Theory. Her edited collection-in-progress, Feminism Against Cisness, addresses the definitions of trans life crafted by people in positions of power — politicians, judges, pundits, and academics — toward the end of reasserting the universality of cisness to counter the contemporary vibrancy of trans feminist liberation.
Location: Graduate Lounge (Room 330, 3rd Floor), Fisher-Bennett Hall
Organized by the Theorizing Lecture Series of the Program for Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, in collaboration with the Mods Working Group, and the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies (GSWS) Program.
Please join us! Refreshments will be served.