Monday 25th – Friday 29th May 2026
The Sexuality Summer School (SSS) is a week-long event consisting of seminars and workshops for 40 postgraduate students, alongside a public events programme open to all. This year, the SSS returns with the theme ‘On the Biological’, exploring contemporary political and intellectual debates about how ‘the biological’ shapes current and historical understandings of sex, gender, race and sexuality. Our public events and postgraduate workshops will examine biological discourse across a range of academic research, artistic practice and activist histories, such as work on HIV/AIDS, chemsex, motherhood, racialisation, ‘sex’ hormones and trans healthcare.
In recent years, the category of the biological has been hotly contested, resulting in polemical and polarised public debate. The SSS will provide a much-needed forum for thoughtful discussion led by intellectual curiosity. Our discussions will draw together debates in queer theory, gender and sexuality studies, critical race studies, and feminist technoscience studies. We will read and discuss new work, including by keynote speakers C. Riley Snorton, Kane Race, Sarah Richardson and Celia Roberts; students will have the opportunity to discuss these in depth in seminars with the authors.
Over the five days of the SSS, our seminars, workshops and public events will offer postgraduate students (MA and PhD) the opportunity to discuss the history, politics and changing registers of biological discourses of sex, race and sexuality in relation to their current research or creative practices.
NB: It has been a particularly intense challenge to finalise the programme this year: the state-sanctioned levels of racism and transphobia in North America have made international movement for many people increasingly difficult; global travel routes that many academics have previously had the privilege to take for granted have now become unstable and unpredictable in the geo-political context of the violence in the ‘Middle East’; and the UK’s own expanding border control regulations have resulted in bureaucratic delays and obstacles. Given this context, C. Riley Snorton and Celia Roberts will be joining us via Zoom for their public lectures. The audience for these events will be in-person only.
Public Events Programme:
Monday 25th May, 4:30-6pm:
Plenary Lecture: Professor C. Riley Snorton: ‘An Ambiguous Heterotopia, Or Some Informal Remarks on “Biology” After Samuel Delany, Judith Butler, and Sylvia Wynter’
NB: The speaker will be joining us via Zoom, but this is an in-person event only.
Venue: Anthony Burgess Centre, M1 5BY
No booking required, all welcome.
Tuesday 26th May, 3-4:30pm
Plenary Lecture: Professor Sarah Richardson: ‘A Sceptical Empiricist’s Guide to Sex Difference Science’
Venue: John Casken LT, Martin Harris Centre, M13 9PL
No booking required, all welcome.
Tuesday 26th May, 5:45-8:30pm
Film Screenings programmed with Club Des Femmes and introduced by So Mayer:
Laws of Love / Gesetze der Liebe (Magnus Hirschfeld, 1927); Sanctus (Barbara Hammer, 1990)
Venue: HOME Cinema, M15 4FN
Tickets required. Click here to book.
Wednesday 27th May, 4-5:30pm
Plenary Lecture: Professor Kane Race: ‘Hijacking Neuroscience: Psychoactive Performatives’
Venue: C1.18, Ellen Wilkinson Building, M15 6JA
No booking required, all welcome.
Wednesday 27th May, 7-9pm
Performance Reading: All the Devils, exploring how pleasure, risk, power, care and fear can become entangled in queer sexual cultures (written by Jonathan Larkin; produced by Jayne Compton, Switchflicker; funded by The National Lottery Community Fund) for the 2026 Sexuality Summer School.
The reading will be followed by a discussion chaired by Jackie Stacey, featuring Maurice Nagington, Kane Race, and playwright Jonathan Larkin.
Venue: Anthony Burgess Centre, M1 5BY
No booking required, all welcome.
Thursday 28th May, 10-11:30am
Plenary Lecture: Professor Celia Roberts: ‘Experimenting with Hormones’.
NB: The speaker will be joining us via Zoom, but this is an in-person event only.
Venue: John Rylands Library, M3 3EH
No booking required, all welcome.
Thursday 28th May, 8pm:
Performance: Second Trimester by Krishna Istha
Venue: Aldridge Studio, The Lowry, M50 3AZ
Tickets required. Click here to book.
For any queries, please email sexualitysummerschool@gmail.com
Organised by the SSS 2026 Team: Professor Jackie Stacey, Dr Millie Lovelock, Tasha Pick (NWCDTP PhD student) and Oliver Towarek (publicity and impact).
About the SSS
The Sexuality Summer School (SSS) is a postgraduate summer school held annually in May at the University of Manchester. During the same week the Summer School also hosts a series of public events including lectures, films and performances. Throughout the year the Sexuality Summer School also co-sponsors events at the University and at venues like Contact and HOME, including Queer Contact and POUTfest.
The Sexuality Summer School is a five-day event for postgraduates, organised by the Centre for the Study of Sexuality and Culture (CSSC) at the University of Manchester since 2008 and funded by the University of Manchester Faculty of Humanities, Manchester Pride and Screen. The Sexuality Summer School brings together postgraduates, researchers and international scholars, as well as artists and filmmakers, to facilitate dialogue and discussions that speak to contemporary debates in queer and feminist sexuality studies, with a particular emphasis on the interdisciplinary study of culture.
You can find details of all of our past summer schools, including posters and public events details, on the left hand side of this page. You can also see a sample schedule. See “updates and related events” for all updates about the Sexuality Summer School and all other events that you might be interested in.
For more information about the Sexuality Summer School, email sexualitysummerschool@gmail.com to get on the mailing list, Facebook Sexuality Summer School or tweet @SSS_Manchester.
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