Renowned trans studies scholar Dr. Sawyer Kemp will speak at the University of Lynchburg at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 29, in Hall Campus Center’s Memorial Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public.
While on campus, Kemp also will lead a workshop in Dr. Robin Bates’ Literature of the Tudor Dynasty course.
An assistant professor of English at Queen’s College, City University of New York, Kemp is an expert on pre-modern and Renaissance transgender identities. Their research focuses on Shakespeare, early modern drama, performance studies, and transgender theory.
Kemp’s talk at Lynchburg will examine the intersections of gender, sex, and colonialism in early modern history, using a trans studies lens to provide both an archive expansion and a corrective to traditional narratives.
By looking at historical personalities such as Antonio de Erauso, Moll Frith, Othello, and Queen Elizabeth I, Kemp will demonstrate the complex ways in which economic and imperial powers have used and shaped gender. According to Kemp, this debunks the idea of transgender identity as a recent phenomenon and discusses the complexity of identifying gender nonconformity in historical contexts.
“Early modern trans studies must simultaneously grapple with the extent to which sex and gender are regulatory biopolitical tools of the state,” Kemp said regarding their lecture at Lynchburg.
“How do we reconcile the contemporary desire for an archival recovery of ‘trans’ to mean something liberatory with the knowledge that privilege is relational and situated?”
For more information, contact Bates, who serves as the John M. Turner Chair in the Humanities, at bates.r@lynchburg.edu.
