Queer Then and Now

The Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS), located at the City University of New York, Graduate Center, was founded in 1991 and is the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of vital concern to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals and communities.

Debanuj DasGupta is assistant professor of feminist studies at University of California at Santa Barbara. Debanuj’s research and teaching focuses on racialized regulation of space, immigration detention, queer migrations and the global governance of migration, sexuality, and HIV.

Joseph Donica is associate professor of English at Bronx Community College, CUNY. His research and teaching focus on Arab-American literature, urban studies, the history of technology, the legal and ethical framework of US citizenship, and queer diasporic literatures of the Middle East and North Africa.

Margot Weiss is associate professor of American studies and anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she established and directs the cluster in Queer Studies and is affiliated with Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on the relationship between queer sexual cultures and US neoliberal capitalism.

Dean Spade has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He works as an Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law. Dean’s book, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law was published by South End Press in 2011. A second edition with new writing was published in 2015 by Duke University Press. Bella Terra Press published a Spanish edition in 2016. In 2015, Dean released a one-hour video documentary, Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!, which can be watched free online with English captions or subtitles in several languages. Dean’s new book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next) was published by Verso Press in October 2020.