This year, Queering Paradigms joined forces with CIRQUE (Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca Queer – Interdisciplinary Queer Research Centre) at the University of Pisa in Italy.

The conference started with welcome speeches and a viewing of the impressive film by director Adele Tulli – Undoing Normal: Notes on audiovisual strategies of subversive repetition 

The next day Luca Greco gave his keynote Bodies that Touch and Move: Toward an Embodied and an Experiential Conception of Performativity.

After the keynote, the conference split into parallel sessions.

The first two QP presentations were by Dan Thorpe, and Leonardo Raznovich, both part of the Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice (INCISE) at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Dan spoke on Disability: Contemporary Realities to Imagined Futures and Leo’s paper was on Crossed Justice: LGBT Rights and Religious Gatekeepers

After a short coffee break, Katharina Wiedlack gave a paper on solidarity between Queer Communities in the East and West: Labor of Love? Performing Queer Solidarity beyond the East/West divide.

Elena Kiesling followed by her presentation on The Limits of Queer Performativity

Elisaveta Dvorakk talked about the work of Annemarie Schwarzenbach in her paper titled: Theorising Journalistic Travel Photography. Political and Performative Aesthetics of the Documentary

Moisés de Figueiredo Guimarães, supported by his supervisor Ricardo Rohm, gave a paper about trans representation Trans Bodies in the Brazilian Theatrical Scene: Dialogue and Intersections in Three Plays

The day was concluded by a wonderful social dinner in the gardens of Centro Congressi “Le Benedettine” a former monastery, now part of the University of Pisa.

Antke Engel opened the next day with her keynote titled Performing Conflict: Acknowledging Heterogeneity through Practicing Queerversity

In the following QP session, Tanya Halldórsdóttir gave a talk on Queering Segregated Spaces: Performing Gender in Yemen, Katrin Burja presented on the Protestant Church in Germany Queer Anthropology of Ambiguity and Bee Scherer (founder of the QP network and director of INCISE) gave a presentation on Trans* and Buddhism: Towards Liberatory Practices

Janet Melville-Wiseman and Jenny Kaighin gave talks from a social work perspective with their presentations Elusive Tensions in Everyday Relationship-based Social Work and The Day Jaimie Came to Class: A Critical Reflection on Creating Queer Learning Spaces That are Challenging but also Safe

Luis Quiros and Guisela Marroquin finally delivered an applied social justice workshop with the title Justice Unplugged

On the last day of the conference, Ulrike Auga (INCISE) delivered the third and final keynote with a particularly rich and stimulating exploration of the intersections of violence, gender, sexualities, faith and migration entitled Sexual Violence and the Performance of Agency: Complicating Discourses on Religion, Gender and Migration.