In a new book on "The Wild" I try to develop a new critical vocabulary to access different, transdisciplinary ways of thinking about race, sexuality, alternative political imaginaries and queer futurity. Building on the legacy of José Esteban Muñoz on the one hand and dialoguing with new and older work in queer studies, I try to repurpose the language of wildness in order to create a switchpoint between different discursive tracks which generally do not intersect. By using a discarded critical term like "the wild" or "wildness," I seek to activate an arena of thinking that has been cordoned off due its colonization and exhaustion within imperial languages of civilization. However, words like the "wild" are packed not only with imperial debris but also with new signs of life, new shoots of thought that peek up out of the rubble, like weeds, showing that the ground we thought was lost, offers odd and suggestive harvests. This talk takes Stravinsky/Nijinsky's Rite of Spring as the starting point for a leap into the wild.

The University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies in association with The Guardian Newspaper, kindly supported by Cambridge University Press, hosted 3 major international events at Kings Place in London where international experts engaged directly with the public on topics of gender and bio-medical advances of the 21st Century. The third of these events was entitled 'Transitioning Gender: The Challenges of Radical Technologies' and featured: Professor Judith (Jack) Halberstam, Professor of English, American Studies, Ethnicity and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California; Professor Richard Green, Research Director and Consultant Psychiatrist, Gender Identity Clinic, Charing Cross Hospital, 1994-2006; Dr Jens Scherpe, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge; and Mr Ben Thom, Vice-President, Press For Change.

The University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies in association with The Guardian Newspaper, kindly supported by Cambridge University Press, hosted 3 major international events at Kings Place in London where international experts engaged directly with the public on topics of gender and bio-medical advances of the 21st Century. The second of these events was entitled 'Gendered Behaviour: what can Science tell us?' and featured: Professor Deborah Cameron, Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication, University of Oxford; Professor Robin Dunbar, Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford; Professor Elizabeth Spelke, Department of Cognitive Psychology, Harvard University; and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Department of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge.

The University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies in association with The Guardian Newspaper, kindly supported by Cambridge University Press, hosted 3 major international events at Kings Place in London where international experts engaged directly with the public on topics of gender and bio-medical advances of the 21st Century. The first of these events was entitled 'Making Babies in the 21st Century: The Rise of Reproductive Technologies' and featured Baroness Onora O'Neill, Moral and Political Philosopher; Professor Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Jr Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, Yale University; Professor Susan Golombok, Director, Centre for Family Research - Developmental Psychology, University of Cambridge; and Professor Carl Djerassi, Inventor of the modern day contraceptive pill and Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University

Professor Carl Djerassi discussed his autobiography From the Pill to the Pen with Professor Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM FRS (Astronomer Royal and Former Head of the Royal Society) on Monday 3 November 2014 in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

Professor Nancy Fraser, Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science and Professor of Philosophy at The New School, New York, gives the Lent 2014 Diane Middlebrook and Carl Djerassi Visiting Professorship Lecture, hosted by the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies.

Professor John Dupré, Professor of Philosophy of Science and Director, ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis) at the University of Exeter gives the Michaelmas 2013 Diane Middlebrook and Carl Djerassi Visiting Professorship Lecture, hosted by the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies.

In his lecture – Gender, Security and Inter-generational Conflict in Muslim Societies Post 9/11 – Professor Ahmed will argue strongly that the governments of countries caught up in the war on terror need to work alongside western nations to help women regain and strengthen their public and private roles. This advance can be achieved only by confronting the barriers that continue to prevent women from fulfilling their potential and by bolstering women’s rights. In his lecture, Professor Ahmed will discuss the daunting problems that many Muslim women encounter on a daily basis in war-torn countries where communities collapse as a result of conflicts that take men away from home and threaten the often fragile security of the families left behind. Many women live with the prospect of having to migrate at any moment, with no notice, in order to protect their children and this turmoil results in a collapse of formal education. Professor Ahmed is able to draw on a range of personal and professional experiences in tackling these issues. He grew up in a Muslim family in northern Pakistan and was educated in a Catholic boarding school. He studied history and then anthropology at university in the UK. Joining the civil service in Pakistan, he became an administrator in the tribal areas in Pakistan which border Afghanistan, an experience that gave him an insight into the different perspectives of people living in remote rural areas where clan loyalties remain paramount.