Panel: Queer, Trans and Two-Spirit Narratives

Join us for an insightful conversation on Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Narratives through the compelling work of Ken Gonzales-Day's Bone Grass Boy. Speakers will explore the rich history of Two-Spirit Indigenous people and discuss the importance of reclaiming these narratives, as well as how to continue honoring queer Indigenous communities.

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

is a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes located in what is now called Eastern Washington state. She received her Ph.D. in American culture from the University of Michigan and is a co-editor and contributor to “Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics and Literature” (University of Arizona Press, 2011). Currently, she lives on Tongva land and is an assistant professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

is an associate professor in English and the Director of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities at California State Los Angeles. Dr. Heintz received their Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, San Diego (2015) and their MA in English from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the English Department, Dr. Heintz was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pomona College and held a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Tulane University. Dr. Heintz teaches and conducts research in multi-ethnic U.S. literature from the nineteenth century to the present through the lens of queer, trans, gender, and critical race studies. Their scholarship has appeared in American Quarterly, GLQ, and Feminist Media Histories, among others. Heintz’s public humanities work can be found in their edited anthology, Transchool Vol 1 (2024).

is a Los Angeles-based artist whose interdisciplinary practice considers the historical construction of race and the limits of representational systems ranging from lynching photographs to educational museum displays. His widely exhibited Erased Lynching series (ongoing), along with the publication of (Duke University Press, 2006) transformed the understanding of racialized violence in the United States and raised awareness of the lynching of Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and African-Americans in California, and to see these collective acts of violence within the larger history of policing, anti-immigration movements, and racial terror lynchings.

Gonzales-Day received a BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and an MA from Hunter College in NYC. He was a Van Lier Fellow in the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program and his work has been widely exhibited: including The J. Paul Getty Museum; LACMA; MOCA; Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; Eastman Museum, Rochester; The Tamayo Museum, Mexico City; The Palais de Tokyo, Paris; The New Museum, CUE Art Foundation, The Kitchen, Jack Shainmann, and El Museo in NYC; The Generali in Vienna; and Thomas Dane Gallery in London, among others.

Moderator:

PhD, is an art historian, critic, and curator. His scholarly and curatorial work explores the identity-based politics of sexuality, queerness, race, and feminism, addressing how these movements manifest themselves in visual culture. He is the author of Bound Together: Leather, Sex, Archives, and Contemporary Art (Manchester University Press, 2020) and Queer X Design: 50 Years of Signs, Symbols, Banners, Logos, and Graphic Art of LGBTQ (Black Dog and Leventhal, 2019). Together with Amelia Jones, he co-edited the catalog Queer Communion: Ron Athey (Intellect 2020), named one of the “Best Art Books of 2020” by The New York Times, and with Chelsea Weathers, Jennifer West: Media Archaeology, a catalog of the artist’s recent work (Radius Books, 2022). He is the curator of a retrospective of the politically-potent practice of Los Angeles-based artist Susan Silton, opening at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in the Fall of 2026. At USC, he is an Associate Professor of Critical Studies in the Roski School of Art and Design.

Image: Ken Gonzales-Day, Untitled #4 (Young Ramoncita), The Bone Grass Boy: The Secret Banks of the Conejo River, 1892, 1994, archival ink on fiber rag paper, 15 x 23 in.

USC is committed to making its events accessible to individuals with disabilities. If you need accommodations to participate in this event, you may contact us at [email protected] or 213-740-4561.

Individuals requiring accommodations or auxiliary aids such as sign language interpreters/real-time captioners and alternative format materials are asked to notify us at least seven days prior to the event. Every reasonable effort will be made to provide accommodations in an effective and timely manner

Host or Publisher USC Fisher Museum of Art