Sips & Scholars: Hannah Leffingwell on "What is Gender?"

Join us for the first session of Sips & Scholars, a free lecture series in partnership with Brooklyn Institue of Social Research set in bars and restaurants all over Brooklyn. This session, entitled “What is Gender? Theorizing Sexual Difference from Simone de Beauvoir to Judith Butler” will be led by Professor Hannah Leffingwell at local bar, The Bush. 

At the heart of queer and feminist theory is the question of gender: who defines it, where it comes from, and whether it can be altered—or even escaped entirely. This talk explores the roots of contemporary gender theory with a deep dive into queer and feminist classics such as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, and Susan Stryker’s When Monsters Speak. Gender appears in these texts as a category of historical analysis, a technological quandary, a biological argument, a medical frontier, a political wedge, and a social construction. Asking what gender “is” and how it relates to the notion of sex, the talk will guide listeners through the foundational theories of second-wave feminism, the innovations of intersectional feminism and queer theory, and the birth of transgenders studies.

Everyone is welcome! Come ready to learn and open to discuss interesting questions together in a safe and welcoming environment. Advanced reading is not required, but we encourage you to check out the suggested booklist.

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PARTICIPANT 

Hannah Leffingwell is a writer, historian, and educator specializing in queer and gender history, lesbian culture, and contemporary LGBTQ+ and feminist social movements. She is a part-time faculty member at the New School for Social Research and an associate faculty member at Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Her research situates twentieth-century lesbian history in transnational and intersectional contexts, asking how experiments in queer and feminist world-making have driven movements for social change across national borders. She holds a PhD in History and French Studies from New York University, where she taught courses on modern queer history, gender history, political revolutions, modern Europe, Russian history, and the history of ideas. Her writing has appeared in Gender & History, Jacobin, The Chronicle Review, Public Seminar, Political Junkie, Eurozine, Sinister Wisdom, and the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog. Her writing is also forthcoming in Transnational LGBTQ+ Networks in Europe and the Americas: Collaborations, Interventions and Activism since 1940 (Bloomsbury Academic).