Anne Balay, Anjali Arondekar, and Eli Clare

Dr. Anne Balay is a labor historian and an organizer with Service Employees International Union Local 509 in Boston. Balay is author of the award winning books Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers and Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, Trans, and Black Truck Drivers.

Dr. Anjali Arondekar is Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Founding Director of the Center for South Asian Studies. Arondekar is author of the award-winning books For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India and Abundance: Sexuality’s History.

Eli Clare is a white, disabled, and genderqueer storyteller and educator. His books include the 2025 Unfurl: Survivals, Sorrows, and Dreaming; the award-winning Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure; The Marrow’s Telling; Words in Motion; and Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation. For his work on disability and queerness/transness, Clare received the 2025-26 Brudner Prize.

Balay, Arondekar, and Clare will frame the conference’s work with keynote addresses focusing on queer labor relations, queer-caste dynamics, and queer, disabled, classed storytelling. Matt Brim, Executive Director of CLAGS and author of Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University, will open the conference.