Title: How to do things with ‘trans’

Abstract: What is the conceptual formation trans, and what can it do? While transgender studies is oriented against providing definitive answers, the field does possess a history and an emergent set of critical tools, both similar to and yet divergent from the more institutionally embraced field of queer studies. Drawing on Susan Stryker’s characterization of transgender studies as queer theory’s “evil twin,” this talk explores the critical relation enacted between the two fields: Rather than envisioning them as opposites, it explores their relation as a fruitful paradox in which each discourse problematizes and yet enlivens the other’s claims. It then demonstrates trans analytics through a reading of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).