CALL FOR PAPERS
4th FemQueer Conference

Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, Portugal

19-20 November 2026

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Anna Klobucka, Univ. Massachusetts Darmouth

Lee Edelman, Univ. Tufts

 

First held in June 2023, FemQueer was conceived as an opportunity to share and discuss work developed by MA students in the Feminist Studies course at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. Over three editions, it has grown beyond this initial context. The 4th edition of the FemQueer Conference now aims to bring together a wider community of scholars, students and artists working across Feminist Studies, Queer Theory, Trans Studies, artistic practice and public engagement.

This edition invites contributions examining how gender, sexuality and embodiment are produced, contested and reimagined in different cultural and political contexts. We are particularly interested in work addressing the normative structures that govern bodies, language, representation and kinship, alongside the practices of resistance through which these structures are challenged. Contributions from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives are welcome, especially those attentive to situated forms of knowledge and to modes of inquiry that unsettle established academic boundaries.

The 4th FemQueer Conference reaffirms its commitment to fostering exchange between academic research, artistic practice, and the wider community. It offers a space for sharing work, establishing collaborations, and extending current debates in feminist, queer, and trans studies, while strengthening FemQueer’s place within the cultural and intellectual life of Porto.

The Organising Committee invites researchers and students to submit proposals for the fourth edition of FemQueer, to be held on 19-20 November 2026 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. Suggested topics include:

• Feminist, queer and decolonial rereadings of the literary and artistic canon;
• Archives, memory and temporalities;
• Gender, sexuality, race: autopoetics and new forms of self-inscription;
• Contemporary queer theories: anti-relationality vs. relationality;
• Failure, negativity, bad education and queerness as nothing;
• Kinship and politics of care;
• Reproductive futurism, heteropessimism, and polyamory;
• Anti-gender movements and the anti-woke backlash;
• Homonationalism, rainbow capitalism, pinkwashing and the politics of inclusion;
• Homonormativity and transnormativity;
• Critical masculinities, cisgenderism and heteronormativity;
• Cyberfeminism, hacktivism and queer algorithms;
• Queer/cuir activism and artivism;
• Ecofeminism and queer ecologies.

Organizing Committee

• Ana Cunha (ILCML/Univ. Porto)
• Ana Margarida Martins (ILCML/Univ. Porto)
• Inês Cardoso (ILCML/Univ. Porto)
• Mafalda Pereira (ILCML/BIFEGA/Univ. Porto)
• Marinela Freitas (ILCML/Univ. Porto)

 

Work Languages

Portuguese, English, Galician, Spanish

 

Registration:

• Proposals must include name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), title of the proposal and an abstract.
• The abstract must contain 300 words, 5 keywords and bibliography.
• Submission should be sent to: femqueer.up@gmail.com

 

Important Dates:

• Submission deadline: 18 September
• Notification of acceptance: 12 October
• Registration payment: 15 October | 30 October
• Event date: 19 and 20 November

 

Registration Fee:

 

Early bird registration: Until 15 October

• Professors and researchers with institutional affiliation: €20
• Students: €10

Late registration: From 16 to 30 October

• Professors and researchers with institutional affiliation: €40
• Students: €20

 

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Registration details will be posted online in September 2026

Organised by the the research axe “Intersexualities” at The Margarida Losa Institute for Comparative Literature:  https://ilcml.com/en/intersexualities/

Contact for further information: femqueer.up@gmail.com