Autotheory’s genre-bending form blends critical theory with life writing. Through performances, readings, papers, and embodied writing exercises, this transdisciplinary conference explores where and how autotheory emerged, the range of its practices, and the ways in which its forms recast the relationships between subjects and the worlds that make them. Panels explore autotheory in relationship to language, image, film, visual, and performance art; the autotheoretical subject in dialogue with the psychoanalytic subject and its scenes of desire; autotheory’s encounter with racialized, trans, queer, and differently abled bodies, and autotheoretical practices of decolonial love.

This conference will take place from March 6–8, 2025, at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences (March 6, 2–7 pm) and Humanities 1, Room 210 (March 7 & 8).

See the full program here.

Featuring: Kazim Ali, Alex Brostoff, La Marr Jurelle Bruce, Vilashini Cooppan, Iliana Cuellar, Nadia Ellis, Carla Freccero, rl Goldberg, Che Gossett, Jan Grue, Eva Hayward, Grace Lavery, Summer Kim Lee, Megan Moodie, Micah Perks, Elda María Román, Simone Stirner, Susan Stryker, Kim TallBear, Ronaldo V. Wilson, Arianne Zwartjes

Sponsored by: The University of California Humanities Research Institute, The Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory at UCHRI, The Humanities Institute at UCSC, and The Center for Cultural Studies at UCSC.

Image credit: Ronaldo V. Wilson. Donald and Carmelina’s Heart 2. 2021. Monoprint.