Queer Then and Now

An essential anthology of leading academics, activists, and artists on the state of queer studies today.

Founded in 1992, the David R. Kessler lectures represent the foreground of queer studies in the US, featuring legendary thinkers such as Cherríe Moraga, Samuel Delaney, Barbara Smith, Judith Butler, and more. Queer Then and Now collects the speeches given from 2002 to 2020, as well as two scholarly roundtables, by some of the most influential scholars, artists, and activists of the last two decades, including Gayle Rubin, Cathy J. Cohen, Dean Spade, Sara Ahmed, Jasbir K. Puar, and the late Douglas Crimp and Adrienne Rich.

Diverse and dynamic, these intertextual conversations tackle some of today’s most important interventions from the margins—including the growth of trans studies, the synergy and disconnect between theory and activism, the role of LGBTQ+ art and media, the challenge of transnational and postcolonial theory, and more. Tracing the maturation of queer studies after its foundation in the 1990s, Queer Then and Now lays the groundwork in the twenty-first century and beyond.