The Social Theory Centre and the Centre for Critical Legal Studies are pleased to host Grace Lavery for a reading of her new memoir Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering PenisLink opens in a new window, followed by discussion with Cath Lambert.

The event will take place on Thursday, March 31^st from 2-4pm (FAB2.43)

About Please Miss:

A memoir of gender transition and recovery from addiction, a dance across genres, a ripping-up of the rulebook, Please Miss is unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

Grace Lavery is a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and a 100 per cent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster. How could her story be straightforward when she is anything but? The telling of her tale is kaleidoscopic, wild and audacious: Grace performs in a David Lynch remake of Sunset Boulevard and is reprogrammed as a 1960s femmebot; she is targeted with anonymous letters from a mysterious cabal of clowns; she writes a socialist manifesto disguised as a porn parody of QI (or is it vice versa?).

As Grace fumbles toward a new trans identity, she tries on dozens of different voices, creating a coat of many colours. The result is dazzling, unique and unforgettable. Startlingly funny and ruthlessly smart, Please Miss gives us what we came for, then slaps us in the face and orders us to come again.

Grace Lavery is a writer, editor, and academic living in Brooklyn, NY. As Associate Professor of English, Critical Theory, and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of California, BerkeleyLink opens in a new window, her research explores the history and theory of aesthetics and interpretation, with particular interests in psychoanalysis, literary realism, and queer and trans cultures.

Cath Lambert is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of WarwickLink opens in a new window. Cath's work includes projects and adventures in research, teaching, art, writing, performance, serious play and collaborations of different kinds. She works in the areas of gender and sexuality, critical and participatory pedagogies, queer theory, live sociology and queer kinship. She collaborates with creative practioners including queer live art organisation Fierce Festival Link opens in a new windowand dance theatre company Vincent Dance TheatreLink opens in a new window. Her book The Live Art of SociologyLink opens in a new window was published by Routledge in 2018.