Gender and Sexuality Expert to Speak at UW, Casper College

Jack Halberstam, one of the world’s leading experts on theories of gender and sexuality, will visit Wyoming as part of the 2019 Bruce Richardson Lecture in the Humanities, speaking at both the University of Wyoming and Casper College.

He will speak Thursday, March 28, at 4 p.m. in the UW College of Arts and Sciences auditorium and Friday, March 29, at 6 p.m. in the Wheeler Concert Hall on the Casper College campus. Both are free and open to the public.

“The Richardson series has offered us an amazing opportunity to bring some of the most compelling humanities research being produced at universities across the country to Wyoming,” says Arielle Zibrak, UW assistant professor of English. “Dr. Halberstam’s visit is no exception. His work has shifted the way we think of topics as disparate as masculinity, the cultural value of failure and the revolutionary politics of transsexuality to bear on the study of literature, the arts and society. Countless readers have been forever changed by these ideas and I’m particularly looking forward to seeing how our students and community members benefit from the lectures and smaller group workshops we have planned.”

Halberstam is a professor of gender studies and English, and director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Columbia University. He is the author of six books, including “Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters,” “Female Masculinity,” “In Queer Time and Place,” “The Queer Art of Failure,” “Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal” and, most recently, a short book titled “Trans: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variance.”

Halberstam’s awards include the 2018 Arcus/Places Prize from Places Journal for innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality and the built environment. Halberstam is currently working on several projects, including a book, titled “Wild Thing: Queer Theory After Nature” on queer anarchy, performance and protest culture, and the intersections between animality, the human and the environment.

Halberstam’s visit is funded by the Bruce Richardson Fund, the Department of English, the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research and the Honors College.

The Richardson Fund was established to bring innovative scholars and thinkers in the humanities to deliver public talks and engage in community outreach across the state. To donate to the Richardson Fund, click here and enter the appeal code “AASEN19RL.”

For more information about Halberstam’s talk or the Richardson Fund, email Zibrak at azibrak@uwyo.edu.