Eric Stanley at UCLA's QGrad Conference

September 24, 2024

Happening on September 27, 2024

The theme of UCLA’s 27th annual QGrad Conference – NONSENSE – asks us to consider sense and who gets to make it. Queerness, according to Jack Halberstam, stems from “strange temporalities, imaginative life schedules, and eccentric economic practices.” In other words, nonsense.

We’re pleased to welcome two nationally renowned artists and scholars who champion nonsense: Chris E. Vargas, founder of MOTHA (the Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art), a Creative Capital Grantee, and Guggenheim Fellow, as well as Eric A. Stanley, whose 2021 book Atmospheres of Violence (Duke University Press) won the Sylvia Rivera Award for Transgender Studies. Together, they’ve co-directed the queer cult films Criminal Queers and Homotopia, which have screened at Outfest, New Museum, et al.