In Between Subjects – Amelia Jones extd.

This presentation gives an overview of Jones’s book In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Subjects, with attention to deeper motivations behind its development, and tracks her thinking about the intersection of “queer” and “performance” or “performativity” since the book was published. Given the rise of anti-trans culture wars and legislation in the United States, for example, what does it mean to historicize this intersection? What aspects of the intersection can be revitalized to empower the struggles for trans existence and political rights today?

Amelia Jones is Robert A. Day Professor at Roski School of Art & Design, University of Southern California. Publications include Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification and the Visual Arts (2012) and Otherwise: Imagining Queer Feminist Art Histories, co-edited with Erin Silver (2016). Her catalogue Queer Communion: Ron Athey (2020) was listed among the “Best Art Books 2020” in the NY Times, and the curated show was listed among Top Ten 2021 exhibitions in Artforum (December 2021). Her book entitled In Between Subjects: A Critical Genealogy of Queer Performance was published in 2021. Her current work addresses the structural racism and neoliberalism of the twenty-first century art world and university.

This lecture is organised by the Cultures of Critique DFG funded research training group, the Center for Critical Studies and the Gender and Diversity Research Network. It is organised in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Center “Intervening Arts”, A06 “Artistic Life Practice as Intervention” and it will take place in English.