Call for Abstracts: Thinking Trans // Trans Thinking Conference

Dates: Thursday, March 27th and Friday, March 28th, 2025

Location: Lafayette College in Easton, PA & Hybrid/Zoom

Call for Proposals

Submission Deadline: November 15, 2024

Notified for acceptance by Dec. 1, 2024

Keynote Speakers:

Dr. Trish Salah (Queen’s University) and Dr. Nathan DuFord (Smith College)

Trans philosophy, broadly construed, provides a space where trans people can think together about our lives, experiences, needs, differences, knowledge, communities, work, and efforts for change. We envision a trans philosophy conference as a place to share these thoughts in a spirit of dialogue and collaboration. We welcome presentations from across theoretical approaches, disciplinary boundaries, and academic divides that engage with trans experiences and perspectives. We will accept both individual and group proposals for presentations. This year we will be conducting a hybrid conference to include options for both meeting in person and for joining online. The Thinking Trans // Trans Thinking Conference is the longest-running conference series on trans philosophy and trans theory.

Topics might include (but are not limited to):

• Trans of color critique
• Trans terminologies, concepts, and narratives
• Trans identities, experiences, knowledges, and epistemology
• Trans ecopoetics and ecophilosophies
• Decolonizing trans thought and activism
• Trans panics and backlash
• Trans theory meets trans literature and trans poetics
• Curiosity, inquiry, and objectification
• Trans activism and climate change
• Trans epistemic injustice, institutional access, and complaint
• Trans health, bioethics, and HIV/AIDS
• Trans geographies, including the geographical situatedness of “trans”
• Trans disability critique and trans/crip theory
• Trans care, friendship, love, and community
• Algorithms, data, surveillance, and technology
• Radical trans critique, including trans Marxism and anarchism
• Visibility, representation, and aesthetics
• Trans oppression, flourishing, and intersectionality
• Trans sexuality and pathologization
• Thinking with trans histories and archives
• Imprisonment and abolition
• Trans labor and political economy, including sex work, service work, and critiques of the tech industry
• Connections between trans theory, the social sciences, law, and public policy
• Critical trans perspectives on nationalism, war, peace, and militarization
• Methodologies across trans philosophy, trans theory, and applied trans studies
• The material conditions of trans thought and trans knowledge production

Please use the Google Forms link below, respond to the brief questions, and include an individual or panel abstract of no more than 500-750 words for review.

The conference will take place at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, within the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, March 27-28, 2025. This area is just south of the Pocono Mountains, a bit over one hour north of Philadelphia, and over the bridge from New Jersey. Transportation options include flying to Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) or Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). Shuttles are available from airports and directly from New York City using the Trans-Bridge Line.

We will hold one panel at a time with breaks in between and an extended lunch break. We are hoping that providing ample time for conversations between panels will build deeper connections for trans philosophy work (broadly construed) moving forward. There will be a limited number of scholarships for students and underemployed scholars who plan to attend in-person.

If you have any questions about the conference, please email the main conference organizer Amy Marvin (marvina at lafayette dot edu).

This event is sponsored by the Louise M. Olmsted Fund for Ethics and the Philosophy Dept. at Lafayette College.

Please fill out the following Google Form by November 15, 2024 to be considered for presenting at the conference: https://forms.gle/62f948KdCLxGxD9R8