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Lunch Hour Lecture | 'Cancel culture' in queer and trans online worlds
11 February 2025, 1:00 pm–2:00 pm
Dr Kyrölä explores what happens when conflict or disagreement arises within queer and transgender communities online.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
UCL Events
As long as online communities have existed, they have functioned as key care structures for LGBTQIA+ people: spaces of connection, support, and affirmation. But what happens when conflict or disagreement arises within these communities, especially at a moment when ‘cancel culture’ and freedom of speech are highly contentious topics, and platform economies thrive and monetise on heightened emotion? This talk will discuss some examples of ‘cancel events’ within queer and transgender online worlds, contextualising them within histories of conflict within queer communities, contemporary platform politics, and queer and feminist theories of vulnerability. It will reflect on how and why these powerful spaces of care and activism may start fragmenting, and how we could keep our communities of care functional and vibrant.
About the Speaker
Dr. Kata Kyrölä
Associate Professor at UCL
Dr. Kata Kyrölä (they/them) is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the IOE, UCL, Programme Leader of the Digital Media: Critical Studies MA, and a member of the UCL LGBTQ+ Equality Steering Group. Their research focuses on questions of affect, power, and media: how feelings and sensations attach us to media images and technologies as well as to structures of marginalisation and hopes for worlds to come. Their publications include The Power of Vulnerability: Mobilising Affect in Feminist, Queer and Anti-racist Media Cultures (2018), The Weight of Images (2014), and articles in journals such as Camera Obscura, Gender and Education, Social Media + Society, Feminist Theory and Sexualities.