12:30-1pm refreshments
1-2:15pm seminar and discussion

Abstract:

Postsecondary institutions of education, similar to the broader society in which they are embedded, are steeped in – and further – trans* oppression. Additionally, the knowledge produced at these institutions can be seen as inflected with trans* oppression, and as continuing to reify the notion that trans* lives and experiences are abject, abnormal, unintelligible, and otherwise impossible. In this presentation, Dr Nicolazzo builds from the work of Patton (2016), Brayboy (2005), Bernal (2002), Ferguson (2012), and Spade (2015) to propose an epistemology that seeks to “[re]distribute the possibilities, potentialities, and life chances” for trans* people. Dr Nicolazzo will also discuss how the imagining of such a trans* epistemological stance may help educators unlearn the gender binary illogic in which they collude, thereby (re)shaping education as liberatory.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Z Nicolazzo is Assistant Professor in the Adult and Higher Education programme and a faculty associate in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, at Northern Illinois University, US. Z’s book, Trans* in College: Transgender Students’ Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion, which details hir 18-month ethnographic research project alongside trans* university students in the United States, is forthcoming from Stylus Publishing (2016). http://cedu.niu.edu/cahe/about/faculty/z-nicolazzo.shtml

This seminar is free and open to all, but advanced booking is required for catering purposes. You can book your place here.

Research seminar co-hosted by the Centre for Education Studies (CES) and the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender (CSWG), and supported by the Faculty of Social Sciences.