About the event
Vision
University of Westminster’s Queering Academia 2024 examines the role of queer education and scholarship against the backdrop of the changing landscape of higher education. This one-day gathering brings together students, academics, support professionals, industry and community partners, and activists to consider the significance of queer lives (and lived experience) within both formal and informal institutions of higher education. We encourage papers, panels, performances, and presentations examining the significance of queer ways of thinking, being, and acting in higher education and scholarship. We encourage diverse contributions that imagine the possibilities of engaging queer and intersectional perspectives in universities and the scholarship of learning and teaching.
Context
The UK government’s LGBT Action Plan (2018) has affirmed that “all LGBT people should feel welcomed and safe at school, college and university so that they can reach their full potential.”
A Stonewall Report (2018) found that:
- 2 in 5 LGBT students (42%) have hidden their identity at university for fear of discrimination.
- 7% per cent of trans students have been physically attacked by another student or member of university staff.
- Two-thirds of LGBTQ students (69 per cent) say university has equalities policies that protect LGBTQ people on campus.
The Second Annual Queering Academia event also seeks to engage some of the work being undertaken by the Office for Students on the experience of LGBTQ students in higher education. We encourage cross-cultural and comparative discussion of equality, diversity, and inclusion frameworks and diversity initiatives in global higher education.
Queering Academia 2024 explores challenges facing LGBT people and how these can be developed through our engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). When the United Nations decided to create a set of global goals to end poverty and inequality by 2030, equality groups pushed for the rights and needs of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people to be considered. The SDGs were agreed in 2015 and signed onto by 193 governments on the basis that they apply to everyone, everywhere and will ‘leave no one behind’.
As part of Westminster Conversations: Queering Academia 2024, we will also be running a series of inclusive events to support queer belonging in higher education – from a queer karaoke (‘sing your queer experience of higher ed’), queer henna sessions (connect with diverse expressions of queer), and queer crafting (channel your queer energy by crafting). Watch this space!
Submit your proposal for participation by emailing Rajat Shah: [email protected]
Deadline for submission of participation proposals is Friday 4 May 2024.
We welcome proposals for:
- Papers
- Workshops
- Panels
- Presentations
- Performances (music, theatre, experimental etc)
- Art based installations and multimedia presentations
- Spoken word and poetry
- And any other format or medium you wish to consider!
We seek contributions from any and no disciplines (and especially beyond academia). We hope to engage students, academics, activists and artists working with relevant themes, including (but not limited to):
- What is the queer student experience?
- Supporting queer students
- Queer belonging in higher ed
- Queer research: methodologies and frameworks
- Life as a queer PhD student
- How do we talk about LGBTQIA+ in higher ed?
- Race, queer, ad higher ed
- Trans experiences/knowledges of higher ed
- Non-binary experiences/knowledges of higher ed
- Neurodiversity and queer
- Ableism, disability, and queer
- Queer transitions in/into higher ed
- Racialised experiences of queer
- Histories of queer in higher ed
- Imagining a queer inclusive university
- Queering employability
- Queering global mobility
- Queering leadership
- Queering student partnership work
- Queering the Sustainable Development Goals
- Queering STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics)
- Queering the liberal arts
- Queering the law school
- Queering the social sciences
- Queering health and medicine
- Queering the business school
- Queering art, design, architecture
- Queering computing and engineering
- Queering decolonisation and decolonising queer
The above list is indicative only. We are open to conversing and engaging with a range of diverse and wonderful perspectives. Please do get in touch if you wish to chat more about this event and how you might participate (including any accessibility requirements to facilitate participation at this event).
The event is part of Quintin Hogg Trust-Supported EDI Programme “Community and Communities” at the University of Westminster.
Deadline for submission of proposals is Friday 4 May 2024. To submit a proposal, please email Rajat Shah: [email protected]
Co-convenors: Dr Simon Avery, Dr Thomas Moore, Rajat Shah
Location and access
The Pavilion, 115 New Cavendish St, London, W1W 6UW
The link to the event will be sent after registration, closer to the date of the event. The organiser will contact you with instructions on how to redeem your ticket and access the event.
