UCLA Center for the Study of Women

The two leading scholars for gender and queer studies, Susan Stryker, Associate Professor in the Gender Studies Program at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Kara Keeling, Associate Professor in the Critical Studies Program of USC's School of Cinematic Arts, were the featured speakers in the plenary session of this year's UCLA Queer Studies Conference. Organized by UCLA's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program the annual conference showcases a rich variety of queer research and provides a chance for students, faculty and independent researchers to share work and insights. Stryker and Keeling were critical of existing paradigms or ontologies but were also optimistic, engaging with the liminal spaces of queer- and trans- potentialities situated within a broader context of current political and social discourses concerning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.