Dissidences trans/féministes : archives, circulations, créations

This year’s Think.Zone will extend last year’s explorations of trans dissidences, focusing on the emergence of trans/feminist movements, forms of thought, and creative practices at the heart of the empire, particularly from Europe in the 1990s onward.
In the context of globalized conservative attacks on queer, trans, and feminist lives, it seems essential to connect contemporary résistrans to their archives, histories, and genealogies. Trans/feminist solidarities are neither recent nor exceptional: the transmission of the stories and experiences of struggle of previous generations is an effective antidote to the dynamics of systemic erasure. The geographies of European existrans* are also multiple, extending across France, England, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland in particular, as well as across the circulation of ideas, practices, and imaginaries, and the entanglements of coloniality, gender, and sexuality from the Global North. Thinking through alliances and forms of cross-contamination makes it possible to resist nationalist isolation and to nurture solidarities in the present. Trans/feminisms offer both critical tools for undoing the racial and capitalist norms that shape so-called deviant bodies, and creative propositions for imagining other forms of eroticism, relationality, and aesthetics. Artistic practices shape movements of gender and sexual dissidence and contribute to transforming ways of living, thinking, and feeling.
This year’s Think.Zone will draw on three distinct pedagogical practices: reading and engaging with foundational theoretical texts in trans/feminist and queer thought; collectively exploring archival materials (videos, manifestos, fanzines, posters, performances, etc.); and analyzing contemporary trans/feminist artistic practices. Some sessions will take place in documentation and archival centers in Geneva (the Maurice Chalumeau Centre for Sexuality Sciences and the Grisélidis Réal Centre). The seminar will be conducted in English and French according to the needs of the group, and will also incorporate Spanish-language references translated into one of these two languages