queer studies

What is Feminist Research: Karen Tongson

Karen Tongson discusses queer theory, gentrification, and popular culture.  Feminist research of popular culture can help us understand what kinds of interventions we can make into prevailing cultural messages and create conditions of possibility for new narratives and trajectories.

What is Feminist Research: Dean Spade

Dean Spade discusses feminist frameworks for research and resistance in terms of the dynamic between the personal and political as well as the importance of compassion and care in the work to dismantle normative systems of hierarchy.  Centered in a racial and economic justice perspective, Spade uses pinkwashing as an example to raise questions about propaganda and skill building in community media reading practices.

What is Feminist Research: Tristan Josephson

Tristan Josephson discusses feminism, Trans Studies, and Trans/feminism.  Josephson brings a social justice perspective to researching how the state classifies transgender immigrants in asylum law, marriage, citizenship, and immigrant detention.  By taking a social justice approach to academic research, trans/feminist scholars provide helpful frameworks for thinking about how to challenge state violence and marginalization on the basis of gender, sexuality, race, and immigration status.