Department News & Happenings
WGSS News
WGSS Spring 2025
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This talk elaborates on Jean Baudrillard’s idea of “hyperreality” to explore the ways in which advanced technology, including AI companions and trends in online pornography, are impacting heterosexuality. The talk argues that the establishment and normalization of relational simulacra are creating a “hyperrelationality.” The allure of hyperrelationality is further intensified as heterosexuality convulses, under strain from rapidly shifting social, cultural, and sexual norms. Under these conditions, AI girlfriends are perceived as attractive because they are, in a sense, ideal companions under the conditions of patriarchal dominance: they are programmatically submissive, affirming, relationally non-autonomous, and metaphysically dependent on their users. However, the talk demonstrates that AI girlfriends, no matter how perfect, cannot save their (male) users from their own negativity.

John Cameron Mitchell's full visit information can be found on our events calendar above. John Cameron Mitchell will give a public lecture "Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore: The Story of a Proto-Trans, Pre-Punk, Nazi-Fighting Surrealist Couple" (Thursday March 27, 2025, Oxford Road Building Presentation Room, 5:00pm). There is also a masterclass for undergraduate students (Thursday March 27, 2025, 1:00-2:15pm, Schwartz Center Theater Lab). Must register in advance for this event.

Intarsia: Undergraduate Journal of Queer and Feminist Inquiry is a peer-reviewed and open-access journal founded at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Intarsia is dedicated to the publication of undergraduate scholarship that addresses feminism, sexuality, sex, and gender from queer and feminist theoretical perspectives. Volume 2 is coming this March! Intarsia is sponsored by the Department for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University and the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship.
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