Queer@King’s is honoured to host Professor Eliza Steinbock to deliver this year’s Derek Jarman Annual Lecture.

Following a filmmaker’s speculative approach to history, the lecture aims to move beyond historical approaches to understanding “what happened” through tuning into “how did it feel” and asking the speculative question of “what might have happened” (Muñoz 1996, Hartman 2019)? Worlds created by/in counterpublics, can live on through us, as the ghosts of absent bodies in our throats. Whose body, whose throat exactly, is a bit muddled, as I will show through analysis of Canadian white trans masculine filmmaker Chase Joynt’s recent documentary feature films. This is because of the use of reenactment to generate folds in time that kiss together otherwise disjointed points, and the polyphonic expression in his films of ‘voice’ that meld and resonate bodies who otherwise exist in different moments. Could welcoming their ghostly feelings into our bodies redress in some way the harm of how these historically overburdened (racialized and misgendered) figures have been sequestered, if not held captive in the cultural and literal archive?

The Derek Jarman Annual Lecture will be introduced by Zeena Feldman, Director of Queer@King’s, and conclude with a drinks reception.

About the speaker

Professor Eliza Steinbock holds the Chair in Transgender Studies, Art and Cultural Activism at Maastricht University. They direct the research-focused Centre for Gender and Diversity. As chairholder, Eliza investigates the change-making mechanisms operative in the art, culture, media, and heritage sectors. They authored the Society for Cinema and Media Studies winner for “Best First Book,” Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change (Duke, 2019). Eliza is co-editor with Susan Stryker and Jian Neo Chen of the book series ASTERISK: Gender, Trans-, and All That Comes After. Their most recent edited volume is open access in English and Dutch, The Critical Visitor: Changing Heritage Practices || De kritische bezoeker: erfgoedpraktijken in verandering (2023). They’ve been awarded €2 million in EU and Dutch Research Council funding resulting in exhibitions, professional workshops, and 40+ publications analyzing the intersecting dimensions of gender, sexuality, race, and ability. Current projects include “The Critical Visitor” (NWO 2020-2025) as project leader and "Perverse Collections" (JPI - Cultural Heritage 2023-2025) as PI of the Dutch team.