About the Conference
Background and 2022 Location
The Lesbian Lives Conference is a large international event focusing on lesbian studies, creativity and activism that draws speakers and participants from all continents and hosts the best-known as well as emerging scholars in the field.
The theme for the 2022 (25th) Lesbian Lives Conference is Solidarity.
The 25th Lesbian Lives Conference will take place in University College Cork (UCC), Ireland from 4-5 March 2022. The LGBT+ Staff Network of University College Cork, in conjunction with the community organisation LINC and scholars from University College Dublin, Cambridge University, and University of Brighton Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender Research, are delighted to host the conference.
The 2022 conference venue is wheelchair accessible, ISL interpretation and all-gender bathrooms are available, and vegan and vegetarian lunches will be provided to registrants. Our registration fees are also on a sliding scale (see the Registration section).
We plan to hold this event in person. However, we will need to adhere to public health and safety guidelines. Should the global pandemic continue, we may have to pivot to an online conference, but we have good reasons to be confident that we will be able to meet in person in 2022.
History of the Conference
The Lesbian Lives Conference is a large international event focusing on lesbian studies, creativity and activism that draws speakers and participants from all continents and hosts the best-known as well as emerging scholars in the field.
Running since 1993, the guiding values of the conference are: accessibility, diversity, dialogue and inclusive welcome.
This ethos has meant that our conference has been attended and organised by people of all genders and none, with differing embodiments, a variety of sexual (and asexual) orientations and different political affiliations.
In the past we have hosted Kate Bornstein, Barbara Carrellas, Emma Donoghue, Jackie Kay, Del La Grace Volcano, Joan Nestle, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, Sarah Schulman, Cherry Smyth, Sarah Waters, Campbell X, and academics such as Sara Ahmed, Terry Castle, Eleanor Conlin Casella, Davina Cooper, Laura Doan, Lisa Downing, Lillian Faderman, Sarah Franklin, Claire Hemmings, Alison Hennegan, Alison Oram, Sally R. Munt, Yvette Taylor, Helena Whitbread, Bonnie Zimmerman among many others.
The social, cultural and artistic impact of this conference cannot be underestimated as it gathers together academics, activists, performers and writers who do not otherwise have the opportunity to address such large audiences or to network across international and professional boundaries.
It is a forum for political organisation on the levels of both community activism and established international NGOs. Many books (academic and literary) and films (documentaries and dramas) are launched at this event and it is continually referenced in lesbian work and events internationally.
The conference sets the parameters for debate in the manifold disciplines that now take ‘Lesbian’ or ‘Lesbian Communities’ as the object of enquiry or as a category for analysis. The Lesbian Lives conference is open to people of all identities and strongly welcomes and encourages members of all LGBTQ communities to attend.
The conference is a mix of academics, activists and artists and none of the above. The focus is on ‘lesbian’ which remains that vexed, curious term (both adjective and noun) that not all are fully comfortable in embracing, but yet the banner ‘lesbian’ works to attract a range of people to explore, converse and create and the atmosphere of the Lesbian Lives Conference is something distinct and special – there is a friendliness, a warmth, an excitement, an openness, a bravery and generosity that every Lesbian Lives Conference has generated.
Guiding Values of the Lesbian Lives Conference
The theme of Lesbian Lives 2022 is Solidarity. This theme is informed by the guiding values of the Lesbian Lives Conference since its inception in 1993 - accessibility, diversity, dialogue and inclusive welcome. This ethos has meant that our conference has been attended and organised by people of all genders and none, with differing embodiments, a variety of sexual (and asexual) orientations and different political affiliations.
A lot of people who come to the Lesbian Lives Conference are making a stretch out of their comfort zone: for some that stretch is to move from the closet, for others the stretch is to come into a university building, for others it is to risk having their battered heart bruised again in the mill of feminist and queer politics. There are many people among us at the Conference who are making themselves vulnerable in coming into a place they fear might be too white, too middle-class, too cis-gendered, too academic, too PC, too Queer, too Lesbian. It is the courage of this large cohort at the conference to make themselves open to the challenge that gives the Lesbian Lives Conference its unique charge.
LGBTQ+ Solidarity
The Lesbian Lives Conference is one of the few spaces remaining to us where lesbian lives remain honoured and the focus of our dialogue and discussion. The organisers are mindful of the fragility of the space of the middle ground where contests occur: many of these spaces have closed due to conflicts that became polarised and the tricky middle ground of respectful encounter has too often been lost to us. The Lesbian Lives Conference tries to construct a space where we can come together, meet different people and perhaps begin to figure out and envision together what a better world would look like.
The conference organisers do not support a policy of no-platforming unless there is an expressed intention to deliver hate speech or if hate speech is expressed during a session. A key feature of hate speech is to stereotype a group of people (of which you are not a member) and from this basis of crude generalisations and inaccurate descriptions to depict this group as centrally problematic. These rhetorical moves in themselves constitute hate speech and are often the premises on which plans for further violence are encouraged in order to fix, sort, clean up or eradicate, to find a final solution to the so-called ‘problematic’ group.
We welcome all genders, including gender-non-binary people and in particular we have a warm welcome to Bi communities and to Trans people. We believe the welcome to Trans women needs a special emphasis as increasingly in recent years they have been the target of hate speech. The organisers will close down any session that attempts to give a platform to hate speech – hate speech is antithetical to dialogue which depends on a respectful engagement and we wish to foster dialogue, even if challenging.
We look forward to welcoming you to the conference and to hearing the exciting papers on the timely theme of Solidarity, participating in the enlivening workshops, watching the phenomenal films and engaging in a process of learning and growth.
Impact of COVID-19
Current Irish government guidelines (updated 28th February 2022) allow the conference to go ahead in person.
Face masks and vaccination certificates are not required.
Delegates are asked to follow good hygiene principles during the conference, and please do not attend the campus if you experience any symptoms of Covid-19.
The most current official UCC advice and information is available here: https://www.ucc.ie/en/emt/covid19/visitor/
Accessibility and Diversity
The conference is wheelchair accessible, some ISL interpretation and all-gender bathrooms are available, and vegan and vegetarian lunches will be provided to registrants. Our registration fees are also on a sliding scale (see the Registration section). If you have any special requests, please feel free to email the conference organisers at ll2022@ucc.ie
Watch ISL interpreters' video to deaf community attending the conference:
Contact the conference organisers
To contact the conference organisers, please email ll2022@ucc.ie