Queer Genealogies in Dominican Literature and Culture

Join us for an intergenerational conversation in celebration of Maja Horn's Queer Genealogies in Dominican Literature and Culture (University Press of Florida, 2025), with Carlos U. Decena (Latino and Caribbean Studies, Rutgers University) and Rosamond S. King (English, Brooklyn College) and Professor Horn’s former "Queer Caribbean Critique" seminar students, Mariley Melo and Josiah Keys.

In Queer Genealogies, Horn traces changing expressions of same-sex desire across Dominican literature, theater, and activism from the 1950s to the early 21st century. Drawing on over two decades of engagement with queer Dominican cultural networks, Horn maps a creole Dominican queerness and its coexistence and intersection with globalized forms of LGBTQ+ politics and identity expression. These multiple forms of queer expression are shaped by class, race, and gender, which produce both uneven access to public spaces and strategies for negotiating sexuality in more or less visible ways. Bringing together two senior scholars formative to Horn's thinking with former students now carrying this work forward, the conversation—accompanied by a slideshow drawn from Horn's personal archive of queer Dominican visual ephemera—will invite us to reflect on a central question: how do we teach and study gender and sexuality across generations and geographies, and what does a genealogical, rather than linear, approach to queerness make possible?

Accessibility: This event is free and open to the public, and registration is required. ASL interpretation will be provided. A light reception will follow the conversation.

Image credit: Ritual nocturno de amor, Noa Batlle, 2024