Lesbian Lives Conference 2013 - Keynote Speakers

Sarah Schulman is the author of 17 books, most recently the nonfiction titles: Israel/Palestine and The Queer International (Duke), The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination (U of California), Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences (The New Press) and the novels The Mere Future (Arsenal), The Child (Carroll and Graff), Shimmer (Avon) and Rat Bohemia (Dutton.) She is co-director of the Act Up Oral History Project (www.actuporalhistory.org) and co-producer of United in Anger: A History of Act Up. Sarah is co-writer with Cheryl Dunye of two films: THE OWLS and MOMMY IS COMING. Her novel After Delores will be made into a film by Pratibha Parmar.

Lisa Downing is Professor of French Discourses of Sexuality at the University of Birmingham. Her research specialisms include the critical history of sexology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis; queer theory and feminist philosophy; and the history of murder. She is the author of 5 books and over 30 academic journal articles and chapters, and the editor of 9 books and special journal issues. Her most recent monograph is The Subject of Murder: Gender, Exceptionality, and the Modern Killer (forthcoming, Chicago University Press, 2013), a study of how discourses of gender, sexuality, class, and race impact upon the representational, cultural and legal treatment of criminals. Her next project will be on comparative queer theoretical and feminist models of sexual consent, in collaboration with Tim Dean, SUNY Buffalo.

Robyn Pierce is head of social media for a London-based marketing agency. She ran the social media for Lip Service, the popular lesbian drama created by Kudos Film & TV or BBC Three. Lip Service has over 33,000 followers on Twitter 67,000 fans on Facebook and social media played a crucial part in the success of the show. 

Laura Doan is Professor of Cultural History and Sexuality Studies at the University of Manchester. She is author of Fashioning Sapphism : The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture (2001) and has edited or co-edited several volumes in sexuality studies and the history of sexuality.