2025-2026
Moving Forward: An Evening With Karine Jean-Pierre
Join us for a conversation, Meet & Greet and Book Signing with Karine Jean-Pierre.
Acting Up in Hopeless Times (Spring Semester)
Acting Up in Hopeless Times convenes an intergenerational group of public intellectuals, community historians, activists, and scholars to consider the queer legacies of the 1980’s AIDS epidemic. This symposium puts the politically-dire situation of 2025 for LGBTQ+ individuals in continuity with the political histories begun and continued n 1980’s AIDS epidemic. By framing LGBTQ+ activism, culture, and community as the direct result of political crisis, rather than its pre-emption or remedy, this symposium aims to catalyze a renewal of 1) queer theory and historiography within scholarly and public discourses and 2) LGBTQ+ student life on Swarthmore’s campus that has faltered since the discontinuities of campus knowledge transfer created by COVID-19.
Dr. Rebecca Buxton and Dr. Samuel Ritholtz (Spring Semester)
The Way Out displays the multifaceted character of displacement for queer and trans people around the world. In centering the personal narratives of LGBTIQ refugees, this book reveals the shortcomings of the existing refugee protection regime’s capacity to provide sanctuary from the harms that drive displacement. Rebecca Buxton and Samuel Ritholtz's focus on these experiences offers a vibrant example of theory brought to life. Join us for a book talk with the authors.
2024-2025
ALOK Vaid-Menon
ALOK Vaid-Menon is a trailblazing figure in the LGBTQ+ community, celebrated for their compelling blend of art, activism, and education. A South Asian, trans, and gender-nonconforming individual, ALOK has made a significant impact through their work which spans poetry, fashion, and public speaking. ALOK joins Swarthmore College for a performance and book signing.
Dr. Tarek El-Ariss
Book Talk with Dr Tarek El-Ariss about Water on Fire: A Memoir of War
Jules Rosskam speaking with Desire Lines
Jules Rosskam's award winning hybrid documentary radically reframes transmasculine sexuality and history. Through an innovative blend of first-person interviews with transmen who are attracted to me, a fictional storyline based on the life of a gay transmasculine activist Lou Sullivan, and never-before-seen archival gems, the film asks: What is it that shapes our desires? And id we change ourselves, do our desires change too?
Exploring Queerness and Disability with Eli Clare
Eli Clare is a white, disabled, and genderqueer writer and activist living in Vermont. He is the author of Exile and Pride: Disabiloity, W\Queerness, and Liberation, The Marrow's Telling: Words in Motion, Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure, and forthcoming Unfurl.
Heather Hightower '09
Black nonbinary nurse Heather Hightower '09 (they/them) offers advice on how to advocate for yourself while navigating health care systems as a patient, and how to advocate for marginalized patients (BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and more) as a health care worker.
Dr. Alan Pelaez Lopez
Please join us for an interactive session where participants will learn some of the work of TransLatin@ Coalition does to build trans power in this political climate. Participants will gain tools to build a strategy to uplift the lives of trans people in their regions.
Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret
An in your face rock-and-roll drag cabaret that sits at the rare intersection of theater, live concert, comedy drag and performance art. Along with her four-piece band, Martha (the alter ego of Dito van Reigersberg '94) performs reimagined versions and thoughtful interpretations of songs by everyone from Landa Del Rey to Prince to Black Sabbath to Nina Siimone to Lady Gaga, and a little bit of everything in between.
