2013: Queer, Feminist, and Trans Studies and the Undisciplining of Science
University of California, Davis
May 16-17, 2013
The Queer, Feminist, and Trans Studies Research Cluster of UC Davis is pleased to announce its 2013 conference, entitled “Undisciplining Science.” This year’s conference interrogates the intersections between the scientific, political and cultural constructions of gender and sexuality from an interdisciplinary and trans-historical perspective. The conference seeks to undiscipline science by reexamining the gendering and sexualization of the material practices, objects of knowledge, and methods of enquiry that have constituted certain domains (and not others) as recognizably “scientific” and have divided the sciences into certain distinct fields of specialization and expertise. In turn, we will examine how the proliferation of science and technology studies shape contemporary theorizations of queer, feminist, and trans aesthetics, social worlds, and activism. We invite contributions from both within the scientific disciplines which take queer and/or feminist perspectives into account, as well as cross-disciplinary perspectives which interrogate scientific knowledge.


We invite proposals for pre-constituted panels, individual papers, workshops or performances. Submissions from undergraduate students are also encouraged.

Topics to be addressed include (but are not limited to):
• Science and the transgendered or gender-nonconforming body
• The politics of the ‘gay gene’
• Trans identity and medicalization
• Race/eugenics
• Medicine and birth control
• Reproductive justice
• The politics of funding science
• The regulation/medicalization of the gay family
• Science, the law, and sexuality
• The politics of sexually transmitted diseases


If you are interested in presenting, sharing or discussing, please send an email to: qftconference2013@gmail.com and indicate whether you would like to:

1. Present a paper (if so, please include a word document (.doc) with a title and brief abstract (250 words max))

2. Organize a panel (if so, please include a word document with panel title and a panel abstract with paper titles (400 words max))

2. Share work-in-progress as part of a roundtable workshop (if so, please summarize your line of inquiry or research interests in 250 words max), or

3. Present a performance (if so, please include a title, brief description of performance, and website if applicable)

Submissions deadline: March 15, 2013.

To see descriptions of previous QFT conferences, please visit our website: qftcluster.ucdavis.edu