Mini-Conference: Trans Literatures: What Do We Read and How Do We Read?
You are very warmly invited to our mini conference on
Trans Literatures: What Do We Read and How Do We Read?
hosted by the Diversity and Equity Committee of the German Studies Department at the University of Washington
When? November 16, 2026 at 3-4:30 PM, Where? Denny Hall 359, What? This event features a variety of graduate students who study trans literature at UW and beyond. Most of the work presented was developed during last spring’s seminar on What is Trans Literature? Narrative Form and Trans Embodiment (German 592/German 495A) with Dr. Rafael Balling. Come and learn about exciting research on fictional texts that deal with transness, join the critical discussion of how we read these texts and why they matter.
Presentations:
Sophia Aepfelbacher (Department of Political Science, UW):
From Identity to Obligation: Vulnerability, Interdependence, and T4T
Sloan Emrick (English Literature and Culture, UW):
“I Don't Ever Want That Problem to Ever Go Away”: League Discrimination as Genre in…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Denny Hall (DEN). Campus room: 359. Accessibility Contact: Department of German Studies, uwgerman@uw.edu. Event Types: Conferences. Academics. Diversity Equity Inclusion.
Monday, November 16, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM.
Pedagogies and Practices of Relational Memory in the Classroom and Beyond
Join UW’s Relational Memory Studies research cluster for a panel discussion by UW faculty of their pedagogies and practices of relational memory in the classroom and beyond. Panelists will briefly introduce a course or module on relational memory as a way to open a forum on teaching cultural memory relationally. A light lunch will be provided.
Panelists:
Jason Groves, Department of German Studies
Liora Halperin, Department of History and Jackson School of International Studies
Linh Thủy Nguyễn, Department of Ethnic Studies
Alys Weinbaum, Department of English.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Denny 359. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, humanities@uw.edu, 206.543.3920. Event Types: Not Specified.
Monday, November 30, 2026, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM.
Timothy Harrison - University of Chicago Department of English
Feb 3-4, 2027. Timothy Harrison from the University of Chicago Department of English will speak on Feb 3 at the Simpson Center at 3:30-5 in CMU 202 and then the Feb. 4 at a Jackson School early periods comparative religions roundtable from 2:30-4 in THO 317, featuring (and hosted by) the English Department's Rhema Hokama on Milton's thinking about Asian religions, Ben Schmidt on artistic exchange between the Dutch Republic and Tokugawa Shogunate, Nazry Bahrawi on an 18th c Jawi mss in the British library, and Chadwick Allen on a 16th c Mayan narrative of the underworld called the Popul Vuh.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Communications Building (CMU). Campus room: CMU 202. Accessibility Contact: Rhema Hokama, rhema@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops.
Wednesday, February 3, 2027, 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM.
Timothy Harrison - University of Chicago Department of English
Feb 3-4, 2027. Timothy Harrison from the University of Chicago Department of English will speak on Feb 3 at the Simpson Center at 3:30-5 in CMU 202 and then the Feb. 4 at a Jackson School early periods comparative religions roundtable from 2:30-4 in THO 317, featuring (and hosted by) the English Department's Rhema Hokama on Milton's thinking about Asian religions, Ben Schmidt on artistic exchange between the Dutch Republic and Tokugawa Shogunate, Nazry Bahrawi on an 18th c Jawi mss in the British library, and Chadwick Allen on a 16th c Mayan narrative of the underworld called the Popul Vuh.
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Thomson Hall (THO). Campus room: THO 317. Accessibility Contact: Rhema Hokama, rhema@uw.edu. Event Types: Workshops.
Thursday, February 4, 2027, 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM.
Katz Distinguished Lecture: Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, "Limitless: Silicon Valley and the Dream of Apocalypse"
Registration required. Link coming soon.
Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists like Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson, Benjamin R. Teitelbaum argues that renegade leaders in Silicon Valley are crafting a theory of time. In a reversal of the right-wing populist playbook, the tech right dreams not of recovering a golden age of order, but of summoning a world without limits or responsibilities from the future. In this lecture, Teitelbaum shows how tech leaders convey this vision through the languages of religion, physics, and geography. One refrain sounds throughout: that humanity's fate is not to reform, but to transcend, society and politics.
Benjamin R. Teitelbaum is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. An award-winning expert on the radical right, he is author of War for Eternity and Lions of the North. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, The New Statesman, The…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Kane Hall (KNE). Campus room: 210. Accessibility Contact: Simpson Center for the Humanities, 206.543.3920, humanities@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Tuesday, February 9, 2027, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM.