Is This Funny to You?: Queer and Trans Humor in Alabama

Sarah Chant is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at NSSR whose research explores how queer and trans people in the American South use practices of affect and memory to claim history and belonging in the region. Their dissertation, stemming from fieldwork among queer mutual aid groups, community archivists, queer and trans clergy, and drag artists in Alabama, examines how the production of queer space and political possibilities in the state intersect with broader landscapes and histories of race, class, and gender in the South. Sarah is a 2022-23 Mellon Fellow, and previously received support from the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, & Social Thought and the Association for Queer Anthropology. Her talk will focus on how humor, as an affective strategy, can produce vibrant queer and trans geographies in present-day Alabama, particularly in the context of growing anti-trans and anti-queer legislation and sentiment in the United States.