‘The rejection of essentialism,’ David Halperin writes in How to be Gay (2012), ‘did not prevent the original founders of queer theory from asking “What do Queers want?”’. In her Object Lessons (2012), Robyn Wiegman explores the political and institutional effects of scholarly attachments to objects of knowledge. Queer theory is, for Wiegman, one of several ‘identity knowledges’ that share a commitment to social justice and that can teach us lessons about what and how we want.

More than two decades after queer theory’s emergence, presenters at this symposium are invited to engage with queer as an object and with the object lessons of queer theory.

• Camp objects and aesthetics
• Screens and closets
• Queer knowledge: secrets and revelations
• Queer archives and ephemera
• Queer bodies and voices
• Antinormativity
• Queer as death drive / form of life.

For further information and to register your attendance please contact symposium convenor Monique Rooney by email or on (02) 6125 0531:

Image credit: detail from Dreamstate #3, inkjet print, U.K. Frederick (2013)