Keynote Speakers: 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 Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Chair and Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is 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.
Eli Clare Keynote Outline 12pt font (pdf) Eli Clare Keynote Outline 18pt font (pdf)
Featured Panel: Queer Black Histories: Creating Archives for Ourselves
- Miranda Mims (moderator), co-founder, Nomadic Archivists Project (NAP) and co-curator of the Ordinary Peoples Series at the Schomburg
- Steven G. Fullwood, co-founder, NAP and the curator of the In the Life Archive at the Schomburg Center
- Yanni Young, creator, Coming In Stories: Conversations w/ Black LGBTQ Elders in Harlem
- Christopher Stahling, founder, In the Life 2.0
Featured Roundtable: Amber Hollibaugh: Class, Queerness, and Desire
- Margot Weiss (co-organizer; Wesleyan University)
- Debanuj DasGupta (co-organizer; UC Santa Barbara)
- Lisa Duggan (NYU)
- Janet Jakobsen (Barnard College)
- Martin F. Manalansan IV (Rutgers University)
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (writer, movement worker, Living Altars founder)
- Juana María Rodríguez (UC Berkeley)
- Rebecca Jordan-Young (Barnard College)
Our keynote speakers and featured panels will frame the conference’s work by focusing on queer labor relations, queer-caste dynamics, queer/disabled/classed storytelling, class matters in Black archival practice, and queer-class desire. Matt Brim, Executive Director of CLAGS and author of Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University, will open the conference.
