BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//GayOut//Event Export//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT UID:302684@gayout.com DTSTAMP:20261014T224703Z DTSTART:20261026T183000Z DTEND:20261026T213000Z SUMMARY:Lesbian Politics: Sex\\, Difference\\, and Domination (Brooklyn I nstitute for Social Research — BISR) DESCRIPTION:REGISTER FOR THE COURSE HERE\\nWe’re happy to host the Broo klyn Institute of Social Research’s course on Lesbian Politics every Mo nday from 6:30-9:30pm from Oct. 19 through Nov. 9. This 4-week course dra ws on Monique Wittig’s work\\, as well as that of other French thinkers \\, including Simone de Beauvoir and Colette Guillaumin\\, to explore wha t a lesbian political theory can mean and its liberatory potential within and against patriarchy and the heterosexual paradigm. \\nAll payments\\ , refunds\\, and enrollments are through BISR. Please use the registratio n link on their website. \\n“Lesbians are not women\\,” the feminist theorist Monique Wittig famously pronounced. But what did she mean? Acco rding to Wittig’s theory\\, sexual difference is an ideology\\, not an ontological given. The relationship of woman to man is one of domination\ \, determined as much by material and economic oppression as language and discourse. In other words\\, “there is no sex. Only sex that is oppres sed and sex that oppresses.” By existing outside of heterosexuality\\, lesbians refuse the category of “woman” and break its ontological ill usion of timeless difference: what Wittig calls the “heterosexual contr act.” How\\, with Wittig\\, can we understand the possibilities of a fe minism that seeks to abolish sex? What is the political role of lesbians within a heterosexual system? Can heterosexuality itself exist without pr oducing or participating in sexed oppression\\, and if not\\, what are th e alternatives? What is the meaning—and what are the possibilities—of lesbian politics?\\nFollowing the intellectual and political debates amo ng Wittig and her contemporaries\\, we will probe the limits and possibil ities of lesbian theory as a basis for the abolition of the “sex-class system.” How did Wittig and her fellow materialist feminists differenti ate themselves from “French Feminist” theorists like Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray? How did Wittig’s creative experiments with gender an d storytelling lay the groundwork for the emergence of queer theory in th e United States? What can a lesbian politics provide for non-lesbians\\, both gay and straight? Authors will include Monique Wittig\\, Simone de B eauvoir\\, Christine Delphy\\, Colette Guillaumin\\, Françoise d’Eaubo nne\\, and Françoise Verges.\\nHannah Leffingwell is a writer\\, histori an\\, artist\\, and educator specializing in queer and gender history\\, feminist and queer theory\\, lesbian culture(s)\\, and contemporary LGBTQ + and feminist social movements. In addition to her role as associate fac ulty at BISR\\, she has taught at The New School as a member of the part- time faculty and at NYU as an assistant instructor. Her research chronicl es transnational lesbian organizing in the 1970s-90s and has been feature d on Outhistory.org\\, Gender &\\; History\\, and is forthcoming in an edited collection for Bloomsbury Academic. She holds a PhD in History an d French Studies from New York University\\, where she defended her disse rtation\\, “Becoming Lesbian: The Making and Unmaking of the Internatio nal Lesbian Movement\\, 1972-1998\\,” in 2024. Her writing has also app eared in Jacobin\\, The Chronicle Review\\, Public Seminar\\, Political J unkie\\, Eurozine\\, Sinister Wisdom\\, and the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog. She is also active on Substack\\, where she writes a newslet ter called “The Dykegeist.”\\nThe Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is Manhattan’s only queer bookstore\\, located on the second f loor of the LGBT Center. We’re open Tuesday-Sunday from 1-7pm and acces sible by the 6th Ave 1 2 3 L trains and 8th Ave A C E trains. Our cafe\\, The Bureau Cafe\\, is open Tuesday-Sunday from 9am-7pm.\\nhttps://www.ga yout.com/usa-canada/united-states/new-york/events/lesbian-politics-sex-di fference-and-domination-brooklyn-institute-for-social-research-bisr--2026 -10-26 LOCATION:Bureau of General Services-Queer Division URL:https://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/new-york/events/lesbian-politics-sex-difference-and-domination-brooklyn-institute-for-social-research-bisr--2026-10-26 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR