Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 02/02/2026As always, Aporias is accepting rolling submissions of short essays (3,000-7,000 words) by junior scholars about any issue in cultural studies. Email or dm me, or see the lateral website below for more information on how to submit to Aporias. csalateral.org/upcoming/#ap... 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 02/02/2026Second, there is Rouzbeh Shadpey’s “Negative Evidence.” Shadpey demonstrates the challenge that fatigue poses to theory, evincing how fatigue is the very cut, the negativity that separates body and psyche. csalateral.org/section/apor...csalateral.orgRouzbeh Shadpey, "Negative Evidence: The Critical-Clinical Diagnosis of Fatigue in Copjec’s Kiarostami" - LateralThis literary essay examines and rehearses the conceptual challenge fatigue poses to diagnosis in its clinical and critical registers. Taking as its case study Joan Copjec’s essay “Battle Fatigue: Kia... 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 02/02/2026Excited to share two excellent new Aporias articles in Lateral! First there’s Kevin Rigby Jr.’s “What Does Black Protest Appear to Be?,” which considers the intelligibility of Black protest. Rigby puts into tension rupture and representation. csalateral.org/section/apor...csalateral.orgKevin Rigby Jr., "What Does Black Protest Appear to Be?" - LateralThis article interrogates the visual and political logics that make black protest intelligible within modern regimes of political appearance. Focusing on the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2020 M... 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 29/07/2025While my PhD is now over, I am also excited to say that I will start a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University in the Program in Literature this fall. If you are in the area, I would love company avoiding the heat. 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 29/07/2025Thrilled to announce that after six long years, I successfully defended my dissertation today! Massive gratitude to my committee, my examiners, and the many friends, colleagues, mentors, and academic staff who supported me along the way. 120
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 02/06/2025And if you are interested in publishing with Aporias, we are still accepting rolling submissions! So, get in touch! 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 02/06/2025Finally, Renata Prati thoughtfully explores debates about how to theorize depression across affect theory, new materialisms, and feminist studies. csalateral.org/section/apor...csalateral.orgRenata Prati, "What Should We Do with Our Depressions? Feelings, Biology, Politics" - LateralThe aim of this contribution is to explore some of the ways in which cultural studies, and more specifically affect studies and feminist new materialisms, have dealt with the problem of depression. My... 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 02/06/2025Also thrilled to feature a new essay by Alejandro Beas-Murillo that interrogates how narratives of marronage repeatedly abject the enslaved to foment theories of resistance. csalateral.org/section/apor...csalateral.orgAlejandro Beas-Murillo, "Marronage and its Aporias" - LateralIn much proto-nationalist discourse and academic and historical work, marronage has come to represent an open receptacle of competing narratives and desires in the history of slavery, revolt, and Blac... 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 02/06/2025Three new Aporias essays are now out in the latest issue of Lateral! If you haven’t already read Emma Kauffman’s rigorous problematization of the anti-Zionist Jew. Check that out here: csalateral.org/section/apor...csalateral.orgEmma Kauffman, "The Spectre of Antisemitism" - LateralIn this essay, I argue that the rhetoric behind “not in my name” actually mobilizes the same gesture as the popular Zionist move to innocence. While anti-Zionist Jews preface our solidarity with Pales... 121
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 24/03/2025Aporias, a special section of Lateral, is accepting rolling submissions. Aporias features short essays from emerging scholars about controversies or lacunae in cultural studies or related fields. Please see the CFP below. Feel free to DM or email to discuss ideas! csalateral.org/upcoming/#ap...csalateral.orgUpcoming Issues & Calls for Papers - LateralLateral is published semi-annually, fall and spring. General submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, and deadlines for special issues/sections are noted below. All submissions should follow the i... 011
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 18/02/2025If you're in Toronto, I will be presenting a paper at 4:30 PM on March 10th through the Theory Now! workshop at York. This paper, "Gender-Affirming Violence," diagnoses a prohibition in trans studies around thinking political violence. @jttremblay.bsky.social will be offering incisive commentary! 050
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 10/02/2025waited two years for this freedom of information act request and 64 of the 71 pages are entirely redacted lmaooooooooo 010
Reposted by Joshua FalekJean-Thomas Tremblay @jttremblay.bsky.social · 04/02/2025In Representations' new issue on "Elementality," edited by Jim Porter and Mario Telò, I wrote about forever chemicals and the liberal melodrama of legal and symbolic containment they activate. Featuring Ibsen, Haynes, Nichols, Soderbergh, and a guest appearance by one Amy Jellicoe.online.ucpress.eduEnemies of the People“It’s in the water!”The elemental exclamation identifies the aquatic and its associated processes (dissolution, saturation, flow) as the hitherto-undisclosed source of a clear and present danger. “It’... 1216
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 22/01/2025Instead, I find that this “figment,” who was depicted by the musician as having constant sex changes, is actually another elaboration of ungendering. In so doing, I locate the role of agency, affect and race in contemporary theories of transition. 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 22/01/2025Though the musician describes both this “alter-ego” and themselves as trans, I question whether that descriptor fits given the willlessness of this “figment made flesh.” 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 22/01/2025In particular, I attend to a white musician who pretended that they were a black trans person for years. In 2020, the musician came out as nonbinary and explained that playing a Black trans person was necessary for them to comprehend their own nonbinaryness. 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 22/01/2025This article traces a history of minstrelsy and considers how it undergirds particular white forms of nonbinary expression. I consider how the plasticization of the imagined Black body serves as a metaphorical resource for white nonbinary people to imagine gendered plasticity. 110
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 22/01/2025Excited to announce that my article, “Figment made flesh: minstrelsy and nonbinary embodiment in Of Montreal's Georgie Fruit saga” is out today and open access in Feminist Theory journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...journals.sagepub.comSage Journals: Discover world-class researchSubscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher. 140
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Not to mention that effectively many carceral institutions already have a trans-only section: segregation. Incarcerated trans people are far more likely to end up in solitary and often request that, despite its own terror, because of the cruelty that they experience in general population. 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Beyond that, the question of a trans only prison was dismissed since Kavanagh v. Canada in 2001, due to the potential of “ghettoization” as well as being a logistical nightmare. It occasionally reappears, but would only further make trans people vulnerable to violence. 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 21/01/2025These “health and safety concerns” are almost always about the health and safety of carceral institutions…not the trans people who must live in them. 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Horrifying, but not surprising, to see such mistreatment of incarcerated trans people in the name of “health and safety concerns.” This exception has permitted the CSC to quietly rehabilitate their image as “trans friendly,” while increasing surveillance of trans prisoners www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...cbc.caANALYSIS | Quebec murder case sparks debate over where trans inmates should serve time | CBC NewsMany, including Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, argue trans inmates shouldn’t have any choice about where they serve time, while trans activists say the current rules don’t really offer much of ... 120
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 21/01/2025These “health and safety concerns” are almost always about the health and safety of carceral institutions…not the trans people who must live in them. 000
Reposted by Joshua FalekErin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 20/01/2025Politico is reporting trans EOs will include trans people’s passports as well as ending a conversion therapy ban. 691556399
Reposted by Joshua FalekChad Shomura @hellochadcat.bsky.social · 20/01/2025Out today: CAPACITIES TO: AFFECT UP AGAINST FASCISM, a collection of 40+ pieces that engage fascism through affect. Open access here: imbricate.press/book/capacit...imbricate.pressCapacities To: Affect Up Against Fascism<p>Capacities To: Affect Up Against Fascism is a collection of more than forty essays, poems, and visual works that convey myriad approaches for understanding, surviving, and creating counter-movement... 042
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 14/01/2025teaching about homonormativity today, so students are watching this www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjiy...youtube.comSteve Grand - All-American Boy (Official Music Video)YouTube video by Steve Grand 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 11/01/2025And/or I am American and simply do not understand the appeal of Mr. Williams. 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 11/01/2025besides the fact that it looks like ‘NFT ape: the musical,’ I have no interest in seeing Better Man because I personally have never had the experience of not wanting a dj to “rock” me. In fact, too often, I have been saying, dj please “rock” harder!! 100
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 03/12/2024it took years off my life writing the lecture on trans kids, detransitioners, and the myth of the trans feminine predator...I have watched so many horrible Fox News clips now. 010
Reposted by Joshua FalekRuth Pearce @notrightruth.bsky.social · 21/11/2024I'm co-author of a chapter on ethics in trans health research in this new book, "A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States". You can now order it for 50% off from the SUNY Press website with the code HOLIDAY24 (which makes the paperback $22.47, or £24.12 *with postage* to the UK).sunypress.eduA History of Transgender Medicine in the United StatesArriving at a critical moment in the struggle for transgender rights, A History of Transgender Medicine in the United States takes an empathic approach to an embattled subject. Sweeping in scope and d... 56421
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 19/11/2024Class intro today to talk about trans necropolitics. 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 19/11/2024On repeat. wearetheones.bandcamp.com/track/browna...wearetheones.bandcamp.comBrownAmy NYE mix, by BrownAmyfrom the album #ARMTHEGIRLS 2021 110
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 18/11/2024Incredible time at ASA this year! Looking forward to seeing you all again soon! 000
Joshua Falek @cathexsis.bsky.social · 07/10/2023Oh no. My partner did that two years ago and now they’re trying to go twice a week! Beware! (Good luck!! I’m sure it will be great!) 210
