The Materiality of the Digital Transgender Archive: Trans Feminist Epistemologies and Ethics

 

This three part talk will first offer an introduction to the materiality of Digital Transgender Archive, discussing how collections come to be held by the DTA and the questions of access, accessibility, safety, coloniality and geography that this raises. Dr Cousens will then offer three examples from their own research of the trans feminist epistemologies (from male lesbianism to white liberal transnormativity) locatable in archives, discussing the philosophical and political significance of these. Finally, the talk will outline directions for a UK branch of the DTA to address the lack of accessible UK trans history. 

 

Speaker: Emily Cousens (Northeastern University, London)

Dr Emily Cousens is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Northeastern University, London and the UK lead for the Digital Transgender Archive. They are the author of Trans feminist epistemologies in the US Second Wave, published by Palgrave in 2023, and their expertise are in trans feminist philosophy and history. 

 

Moderator: Avik Sarkar (University of Oxford)

Avik Sarkar studies the aesthetics, erotics, and politics of transsexual life. Avik has presented her research at the Hunter Museum of American Art, the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and the Center for the Study of Women at UCLA. She graduated with distinction in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies from Yale; she is now pursuing her master’s as a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford.