An excerpt of an undated poster reproduced by the Chicago Women’s Graphic Collectives for International Women’s Day, observed annually on March 8. Radical Posters: Women’s Graphics Collectives is on display in the Community Room of the CSGS through Friday, March 12.
Dear CSGS Community,
I’d like to open by sharing the hope that all of you may experience a healthy, safe, and peaceful year to come, while acknowledging that those simple good wishes are difficult to realize in our current social and political climate, both nationally and internationally. I hope that you will find community, solace, strength, and inspiration at CSGS.
As you may know, the CSGS is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and we’re marking the occasion in part with a symposium to be held on April 9-10, 2026. This event will showcase the intellectual vibrancy of the Center, and the ongoing urgency of its mission. Our keynote lecture, “This Tree: Black Feminist Ecologies and
the Long Game”, will be delivered by the poet, feminist, and theorist Alexis Pauline Gumbs on Thursday, April 9 at 5pm. In this talk, Gumbs will draw on archival and published writing of key 20th century Black feminist writers to offer some of the lessons of Black feminist ecological practice most relevant for gender and sexuality study and liberation within and beyond academic institutions. We’ll be sending registration information soon!
On Friday, April 10, a day-long conference comprised of four panels, diverse in focus and composition, will capture some of the history and the possible futures of the CSGS, and of studies of sex, gender, and sexuality more broadly.
WINTER 2026
VOLUME 28, ISSUE 2
Mon Jan 12 at 7:00pm
Nancy Thebaut, “Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, & Gender in the Middle Ages”
Tue Jan 20 at 5:00pm Andréa Becker on Get It Out: On the Politics of Hysterectomy
Thu Jan 29 at 5:00pm Summer Internship Info Session
Wed Feb 4 at 4:30pm 2026 Iris Marion Young Distinguished Faculty
Lecture: Kristen Schilt, “Unprecedented Times: Why We Need Gender & Sexuality Studies to Navigate this Political Crisis (and the Next)”
Fri Feb 13 at 5:00pm Enemies to Lovers: a Heated Rivalry and OlympicsThemed Study Break
Thu Feb 19 at 7:00pm
We Are Pat: screening and Q&A with filmmaker Rowan Haber
Thu Feb 26 at 5:00pm
Feminist/Queer Praxis: Trans-Healthcare
The opening panel, Embodied Thought and Practice, explores questions such as, how do practices such as art and activism shape the study of gender and sexuality? How do such practices make room for people and lives that challenge heteronormative imperatives? The second panel, the purposefully-plural States of the Fields, explores several of the many directions in which feminist and gender studies have moved in the thirty years since the CSGS’s founding, including, but not limited to, Black feminist studies, ecocritical feminist studies, global feminisms, and queer and trans studies. Our third panel, Urgencies and Predicaments, addresses just some of the challenges of the present moment, from attacks on higher education and freedom of expression, to the curtailment of legal rights and access to medical care. Our final panel, Institutionalization and its Discontents, will explore the affordances and limitations of (university) administrative structures – departments, Centers, institutes, etc. Our goal is to analyze both the capacity of institutional structures to give visibility and provide support to emergent fields of study, or those that are not adequately accounted for by more traditional administrative divisions, and also to take into account their potential downsides, such as the siloing of faculty and fields, the reification of fields of study, or increased vulnerability to external pressures. The conference program will be sent out soon; please share the information with your networks! We would love to see you there for however much of the day your schedule permits.
I’d like to thank the members of the symposium planning
MA/PhD Social Hours and Graduate Symposium
This Winter, Instructional Professor Red Tremmel started a new social hour for MA/PhD students who are working on gender and sexuality. The students who attended enjoyed the opportunity to meet each other in a non-academic setting and were very enthusiastic about continuing to have these events on a quarterly basis. It’s a great way for the students who are working on our Graduate Certificate (which this year added Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations to the list of participating programs) to hear about all of the exciting work their peers are doing on campus.
Please SAVE THE DATES for the Gender and Sexuality Studies
MA/PhD Spring Welcome Back, which will be held at the CSGS on Wednesday, March 25 from 4-6pm, as well as New Research in Gender and Sexuality Studies: The 2026 CSGS Graduate Student Symposium, which will be held on Monday, May 18 and Wednesday, May 20 from 5-7pm.
Course Design Prize
It’s the third year for the CSGS Course Design Prize for Graduate Instructors (application deadline February 28, 2026). This $1000 prize will be given to a PhD student who has designed an undergraduate course for which they will serve as instructor of record in AY 2026-27. This course can be used to fulfill PTP/
committee – Tate Brazas, Jonathan Flatley, Rochona Majumdar, Kaneesha Parsard, Red Tremmel, and Gabe Winant – for their time, thought, and energy. Their efforts have been indispensable in putting this event together. I also acknowledge that we took on what is, in some sense, an impossible endeavor: let’s talk about the study and the experience of gender and sexuality over the past 30 years, in the present time, and its futures. But, we love a challenge!
We have posed some big questions to think about collectively in April, and we offer you a set of invitations: to take stock of the past and where it has brought us, to continue to imagine new futures and horizons for scholarship related to sex, gender, and sexuality, to confront oppressive and regulatory regimes, and to carry forward the struggle to create a more just and a more liberatory society. We hope that this event will be both thoughtprovoking and inspiring, that it will generate conversation among the members of our community and beyond, and that it will provide the spark for research, teaching, events, and programming in the years and decades to come.
With best wishes to all for a successful winter quarter,
Daisy Delogu
Faculty Director, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality
Howard L. Willett Professor of French Literature, Department of Romance Languages and Literature
MTE requirements, or as a prize lectureship above and beyond the PTP/MTE requirements, in which case the student will be compensated. The course should demonstrate a robust and sustained engagement with questions of gender and sexuality. Priority will be given to students who have already had classroom experience as a Teaching Assistant or other role.
2026-27 Fellowships
Applications are also currently open for 2026-2027 Dissertation and Residential Fellowships (deadline March 15, 2026) for current PhD students who are working on issues of gender and/ or sexuality within their academic discipline. In addition to the CSGS fellowships, we will have joint fellowship opportunities with the Center of the Study of Race, Politics and Culture for graduate students whose work crosses over both research areas. More information on all our graduate prizes and fellowships is available on our graduate funding page
If you have questions or would like to discuss the course design prize or fellowships, please contact Bonnie Kanter, CSGS Assistant Director for Student Affairs and Curriculum, at bonniek@ uchicago.edu
One of our most popular Feminist Queer Praxis (FQP) events returns this winter, in conjunction with the popular course “Treating Trans-: Practices of Medicine, Practices of Theory“ taught by former CSGS Fellow Paula Martin (Health and Society). We will bring in a variety of people who work with in the healthcare and social services fields with the trans community to discuss the current state of available services and give advice to our undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing similar careers. The event will be held on Thursday, February 26 at 5pm.
In the meantime, our fantastic Student Advisory Board will follow up their incredibly successful Performative Male Study Break (which was so popular it generated an article in the Maroon!) with “From Enemies to Lovers - a Heated Rivalry and Olympicsthemed Galentine’s/Valentine’s/Palentine’s Day Study Break” on Friday, February 13 at 4pm. There will be ice skating on the Midway, and trivia, crafts and a cocoa bar back at the CSGS. Join us on February 13th!
Once again, we have over 200 students in the Gender and Sexuality in World Civ sequence! Professor Kris Trujillo (Comparative Literature) is chairing the sequence this quarter with other sections being taught by Professors Hoda El Shakry (Comparative Literature), Leah Feldman (Comparative Literature), Armando Maggi (Romance Languages and Literature) and Kaneesha Parsard (English), Instructional Professor Red Tremmel (Gender and Sexuality Studies), Lecturer Rhiannon Auriemma (Gender and Sexuality Studies) and Teaching Fellows Gabi OjedaSague (English), Omar Safadi (Political Science) and Virginia White (Divinity). Other classes that we are parenting include Dana Glaser (Teaching Fellow in English) teaching “Advanced Theories of Gender and Sexuality,” Red Tremmel teaching a new course, “Queer Cultures, Intimacies, and Embodiments in Historical Perspective,” Rhiannon Auriemma once again teaching her popular course, “Contemporary Feminist Politics,” and Omar Safadi reviving a class we haven’t taught in a few years, “Foundations in Masculinity Studies.” Beyond our own offerings, we are crosslisting 42 undergraduate and 19 graduate courses.
This year the Center will offer funding for up to eight summer internships at gender- and LGBTQ-related service, educational, or activist organizations in the U.S. Those who receive funding will need to secure their own (unpaid) internships but don’t need to have it already set before they apply. The CSGS staff is happy to help applicants think through potential internship sites in the city and beyond. A Summer Internship Funding Information Session on Thursday, January 29 at 5pm will include last year’s recipients speaking about their experiences. The deadline to apply for funding is March 1st at 11:59 pm.
The LGBTQ+ Community Engagement Award is a student prize sponsored by UChicago Alumni Pride and the CSGS. The annual award honors exceptional contributions that advance and support the interests of the LGBTQ+ community and is open to current UChicago undergraduate or graduate students in good academic standing. The awardee will receive a prize of $500 and be honored with the opportunity to speak publicly about the significance of their work and introduce the invited distinguished speaker at the coming year’s OUTstanding Speaker Series lecture. Undergraduate winners will be listed on the College Honors and Awards page. Nominations (including self-nominations) are due March 1. Eligible nominees will be notified in early March with a request to submit materials by April 1.
Undergraduate students interested in the topics of gender and/ or sexuality are welcome at the Center and have the option to major or minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Students can take GNSE coursework as an independent major, or as a double major where their gender coursework can provide a lens through which they study another discipline. A minor is also available for students who may not be able to complete all the major requirements while also studying another discipline. Currently, we have students who are also majoring in Biology, English, Sociology, Cinema and Media Studies, and many other areas. If you have questions about the major or minor and want to talk about how they might fit in with your general academic goals, email Bonnie Kanter (bonniek@uchicago.edu) to talk through your options.
• Mon, Feb 2: Travel/Research Grants for Undergraduate and Graduate Students
• Sat, Feb 28: Course Design Prize for Graduate Instructors
• Sun, Mar 1: CSGS Summer Internship Application
• Sun, Mar 15: 2026-27 Residential or Dissertation Fellowships
• Wed, Mar 25 from 4-6pm: Gender and Sexuality Studies MA/PhD Spring Welcome Back
• Thu, Apr 9 at 5pm: CSGS 30th Anniversary Symposium Keynote and 2026 Lauren Berlant Memorial Lecture: Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “This Tree: Black Feminist Ecologies and the Long Game”
• Fri, Apr 10: CSGS 30th Anniversary Symposium
• Thu, Apr 30 at 5pm: 2026 Distinguished Alumni Lecture: Kavita Daiya, “Migration, Representation, and Imaginings of Hope”
• Fri, May 8: 2026 GNSE BA Symposium
Kaneesha Parsard is an assistant professor of English, and associate member of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of gender and sexuality, race, and colonialism, especially but not exclusively in the Caribbean.
Her first book Desiring Freedom: Counter-Imaginaries of Work, Sex, and Family after West Indian Emancipation is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in the fall of 2026. After the end of slavery in the British West Indies, colonial administrators and planters hoped to initiate formerly enslaved Africans and new arrivals, especially indentured workers from the Indian subcontinent, into the values of good work and domesticity. To do so, Kaneesha argues, they narrated freedom as a life cycle in which West Indians would work for wages, marry, have children within marriage, and invest in their children so that they, too, could live good lives. In defiance of this life cycle, the region’s literature and art instead imagined West Indians, particularly women, to live according to their desires: surviving by creative means, consorting with lovers, raising children under circumstances that suit them, and sharing rather than bequeathing their resources. In this book, Kaneesha explores how desire shapes literature, art, and archives as well as how it transforms the concept of freedom in the long century after emancipation. Desire is an amorous feeling, the drive to experiment rather than produce, and the act of reaching for new forms of freedom.
Kaneesha has enjoyed teaching in Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations for the past several years, and will be teaching in the third quarter of GNSE Civ for the first time in spring 2026. Her course is “Going Downtown: Feminist and Queer Life in the Caribbean” and will explore the question What does intimacy, power, and community look like for women, queer and trans people in the Caribbean? through attention to newly available archives, literature and art and theory. All are welcome, and no prior experience is required. Kaneesha has also enjoyed deepening her involvement at CSGS as a new member of the governing board.
Workshop
The Winter 2026 schedule for the Gender and Sexuality Studies Workshop is now available. Sessions will be held on alternate Tuesdays from 5:00 to 6:20pm Central Time (unless otherwise noted) at the CSGS, 5733 S University Ave, in room 103. Papers will be made available in advance via our email list. If you are interested in joining the email list, go to https://lists.uchicago. edu/web/info/sexuality-gender-wkshp. If you have any questions or accommodation requests, please don’t hesitate to contact the workshop co-coordinators, Malavika Parthasarathy or Hugo Ljungbäck, at gssworkshop@gmail.com
CSGS STAFF AND INSTRUCTORS
Rhiannon Love Auriemma, Lecturer
Tate Brazas, Associate Director
Daisy Delogu, Faculty Director
Gaby Fernandez, Event and Admin Intern
Bonnie Kanter, Assistant Director for Student Affairs and Curriculum
Heather Keenleyside, Director of Studies
Cari Street, Communications and Media Intern
Red Vaughan Tremmel, Instructional Professor
The Gender and Sexuality Studies Working Group welcomes students and papers from any field, discipline, or methodological tradition, as long as the research is relevant to gender and sexuality studies, broadly defined. Submitted work may be partial or rough, including rough drafts of papers or dissertation chapters, work nearing completion, survey designs, literature reviews, or methodological sections. Meeting time consists largely of discussion of the submitted research or work following brief comments from the presenter. We ask that only students, graduate or undergraduate, attend.
In Winter Quarter, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Working Group will meet every other Tuesday at 5:00pm in Room 103 of the CSGS. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to the Working Group Co-Coordinators Olivia Jenkins (History) and alicehank winham (Divinity) at gssworkinggroup@gmail.com
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