The Queer Studies Lecture was established in 2014, connected with the development of the queer studies emphasis in the Gender Studies minor. This fall’s Queer Studies lecture will be given by Dr. Briona Simone Jones. 

Dr. Jones is an Assistant Professor of English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Connecticut. She is the editor of the multi-award-winning book, Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, the most comprehensive anthology centering Black Lesbian Thought to date. Jones was recently a Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture working on her second book, Black Lesbian Aesthetics, and curated the exhibition, The Pleasure of Rebellion, which attended to the personal and political contours of Cheryl Clarke and Alexis De Veaux's work. Dr. Jones is currently the Visiting Audre Lorde Professor of Queer Studies at Spelman College.