Queer Lasting: Ecologies of Care at Future’s End

press release: What has contemporary environmentalism’s seemingly necessary emphasis on the future rendered unthinkable? At this in-person Friday Lunch talk, Professor Sarah Ensor looks to queer literature and theory for forms of community, persistence, and care that emerge amidst nominally “futureless” circumstances. Tracing unexpected resonances between, and taking lessons from, two periods of “queer extinction” (the 1890s and the 1980s), Ensor suggests why bracketing the question of the future as we (think we) know it may be the best way to approach the environmental challenges of today.

Please note: A catered lunch will be provided at this Friday Lunch event. Seats are limited and available on a first-come basis. To register, please send an email to rsvp@humanities.wisc.edu with your name, title, or affiliation.

Sarah Ensor is an assistant professor of English and also a faculty associate in the Nelson Institute’s Center for Culture, History, and Environment. Her work engages the intersections between queer and environmental thought in American literature from the nineteenth century through the present.