September 14, 2017 at  4:00 PM, Rm 1008

Jennifer Christine Nash, Northwestern University

"Love Letter from a Critic, or Notes on the Intersectionality Wars."

 Part of the Q/F/T* (Queer/Feminist/Trans*) Lecture Series

In this talk, Nash explores the affective lure of the term “critic”, engaging how the word has become the centerpiece of the intersectionality wars that black feminism has found itself mired in, and asking how the constant invocation of the malicious critic as a pernicious outsider becomes a crucial strategy through which black feminists reassert their hold on intersectionality, and perform their collective desire to shield intersectionality from violent criticism.                          

Jennifer Nash is an Associate Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of The Black Body in Ecstasy: Reading Race, Reading Pornography which was awarded the Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize by the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association. She has edited the anthology Gender: Love, and co-edited a special issue of Feminist Formations titled "Institutional Feelings: Practicing Women's Studies in the Corporate University." Her articles have been published in journals including GLQ, Social Text, Feminist Theory, Feminist Studies, and Signs.