SGS events
Forthcoming Events:
SAHCI/SGS Research Workshop: Computing Gender: Digital Humanities and Feminist Literary History on Thursday 7 May, 4-6pm in 58AD02 and online
Led by Professor Katherine Binhammer, (University of Alberta and University of Surrey Visiting Professor) and Chaired by Professor Diane Watt
This workshop will provide an overview of how digital humanities methods have been used in feminist literary history as well as the limits and possibilities of such methods for research in the cultural studies of gender. It will introduce scholars to the principles of 'Data Feminism' and to The Orlando Project, one of the longest-running digital humanities projects in the world. The project team, of which Prof. Binhammer is the literary director, has published the large-scale, searchable textbase Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present (Cambridge UP).
Profs. Binhammer and Watt are currently co-authoring the first volume of a feminist literary history of women’s writing which combines digital humanities scholarship (the Orlando text base) and traditional scholarship.
Recent Events:
The Weird World of Neopronouns with Dr Lena Mattheis held on Tuesday 24 February 4-5pm
Wrestling as Performative Spectacle held on Wednesday 18 February from 2.30pm
This event featured a screening of Signature Move, followed by a short presentation by Saher Bano, Commonwealth Split Site Scholar in SAHCI and member of SGS, on the film's context, themes and representational politics.
Past Events:
LGBTQIA+ Studies and Intersex: an SGS interdisciplinary conversation
On Friday 14th November 16:00-17:00, Dr David Griffiths and Dr Marta Prandelli (Dublin City University) held a conversation about their research on intersex, the complexities of adding the ‘I’ to LGBTQIA+, and the role of psychology and the social sciences in sex, gender and sexualities research, politics, and social justice.
In October and November, SGS members leador were involved in a number of events as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science and the AHRC Being Human Festival.
These included:
Wed 22 Oct 2025 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM online
Transforming Food in Women's Prisons
Wed 22 Oct 2025 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM at The Guildford Institute, GU1 4LH
Explore, Express, Empower: Zine-Making Workshop on Women’s Work Experiences
Thu 6 Nov 2025 6:00 PM - 8:30 PMThe Guildford Institute, GU1 4LH
Transgressing Lines: Decoding queer fashion history
Sat 8 Nov 2025 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM at New House Arts Space, GU1 4SQ
An informal interdisciplinary discussion of the theme of 'Gender & Gender Identities' was held on Wednesday 4 June.
This was an opportunity for colleagues to come together, see what others in different departments/schools are doing in this area, and decide whether they would like to explore the possibility of working in partnership with others on more specific topics.
Art Exhibition Launch Event - Celebrating our past, creating our future
May 30 · 7 - 9pm, New House Art Space & Gallery, Guildford
Organized by Blossom LGBT CIC and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, this exhibition included a recent collaboration with Pride in Nature, a series of workshops in association with research from the University or Surrey exploring queer connections to nature. Featuring work by LGBTQIA+ artists, it also included MY QUEER TRUTH: AN EXHIBITION OF ZINES by SGS's Teresa Pilgrim.
Exhibition dates were Saturday 31st May – End of June.
SGS's Lena Mattheis at thee Pint of Science "From Thou to You: The Evolution of Pronouns"
Held on Wednesday, 21 May, 7pm, The Star (Guildford)
International Women's Day Research Showcase: SGS Intersectional Feminist Research
We were excited to host this online panel discussion featuring contributions from PhD students and ECRs linked to SGS. The event was held on Wednesday 19 March.
- Saher Bano, '“Third World, Lesbian Caliban” and “The Second Women”: Towards a queer intersectional hermeneutics'
- Anthea Benjamin, 'Intersectional experience of Black women and experiences of racisms within therapy trainings'
- Chigozirim Miracle Nwaosu, 'Rethinking the Category of Woman in Troy Onyango’s "The Transfiguration" (2016)'
- Beth Roberts, 'White Femininity as Self-Victimisation: Escaping Retribution in the Boy Parts novel (2020) and play (2023)'
- Sarah Wingrove, 'Contextualising 'curiosity': Recent efforts to recover Eliza Raine (1791-1860)
Landmarking Guildford's Queer History
This event held on Sat 9 Nov 2024 took participants on an immersive audio treasure hunt to meet your LGBTQIA+ elders.
We walked in the footsteps of lesbian and gender nonconforming icon Anne Lister aka Gentleman Jack, explored the love nest of Edward II and Piers Gaviston, hear about the tragic story of Alan Turing, and met Felix Holling, the trans archaeologist who ran Guildford Museum for many years.
After visiting the haunts of these and other figures of Guildford's queer history, the amazing community organisation Blossom put together a creative activity and space for socialising.
This University of Surrey event was part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, that took place 7–16 November 2024, and was led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.
Understanding risk in commercial sex markets: The case of men who visit full-service sex workers
This event was held on Friday 1 Nov 2024 online.
How do men who engage with and visit full-service sex workers understand and perceive law enforcement risk associated with it? To what extent do changes in legislation may impact on their willingness to visit service providers? Under what circumstances may clients become ‘accountable active participants’ in commercial sex markets?
University of Surrey’s Dr Giulia Berlusconi explored the key findings from the Understanding Risk in Commercial Sex Markets study, which she conducted with Dr Luca Giommoni (Cardiff University) and was funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grants scheme.
'The Day of the Princess': Contemporary Understandings of the Disney Princess Phenomenon Symposium was held on Wednesday 16th October 2024 (Hybrid)
The Medieval Research Group in collaboration with SGS hosted a research seminar with visiting PhD student Hannah Victoria Johnson (Sorbonne) "Queer Studies and Cognitive Linguistics: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Reading Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Mystical Texts" on Tuesday 30 July (hybrid).
SGS Research Showcase: A Historical Journey in Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Research
We were excited to hold an SGS Research Showcase Event on Wednesday, February 21 2024, co-hosted by Oscar Hoyle from LGBT Blossom. Members of SGS demonstrated the fantastic range of research we do in SGS and Oscar presented the work LGBT Blossom does.
Programme:
- 2.00. Teresa Pilgrim - Female masculinities and the environment in early mediaeval texts, 700-1000
- 2.15. Lena Mattheis - Queer pronoun use in literature
- 2.30. Katherine Hubbard - History of aversion therapy/queer feminist history in psychology
- 2.45. Chigozirim Miracle Nwaosu - Afro-queerness and migration in Helon Habila's Travellers and Jude Dibia's Walking with Shadows
- 3.00. Fabio Fasoli – Voice-based intersectionality, the case of nationality and sexual orientation
- 3.15. Oscar Hoyle - LGBT Blossom
- 3.30. David Griffiths - Intersex storytelling
- 3.45. Giulia Berlusconi - Men who pay for sexual services in England & Wales
- 4.00. final remark