Craig Owens Memorial Lecture
Craig Owens, who died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 39, was a critic, teacher and one of the founders of VCS, shaping it with his commitments to postmodern theory, contemporary art, feminism, queer studies, and gay activism. He was an associate editor for October and senior editor for Art in America. We honor his memory each year with a lecture given by a distinguished scholar engaging issues related to Owens's interests.
Academic Year
2023-2024 Amy Villarejo, “Through the Multiverse: Queer Media Today”
2022-2023 Michelle Stephens, “A New Hypothetical: Serializing and Sexualizing the Black Fe/Male-Other”
2021-2022 Jonathan Flatley, "'Our Friend Angela': The Black Communist Star"
2019-2020 Denise Ferreira da Silva, "Corpus Infinitum"
2017-2018 Sharon Hayes, "Queer Publicities"
2015-2016 Brennan Gerard & Ryan Kelly
2014-2015 Gregg Bordowitz, "Love, D. A Celebration of Douglas Crimp"
2013-2014 Devin Fore, “Animal Spirits of the Theater, Collective Brain of the Revolution”
2012-2013 Jennifer Doyle, "Touchy Subject: Ron Athey"
2011-2012 Cindy Patton, "Buggering John Greyson: Works on AIDS, Sex, and Politics from the 1980s"
2010-2011 Juliane Rebentisch, "On Realism Today"
2009-2010 Lynne Catherine Cooke
2008-2009 Callie Angell
2007-2008 David Joselit, “Art and Life: Toward an Ethics of Images”
2006-2007 Carole Vance, "'Juanita/Svetlana/Geeta' Is Crying: Melodrama, Human Rights, and Anti-Trafficking Interventions"
2005-2006 Isaac Julien, "Cinematic Rearticulations"
2004-2005 Yvonne Rainer, "Feelings Are Facts"
2003-2004 Leo Bersani, “Almodovar’s Girls”
2002-2003 Diana Fuss, "In Bed with Proust"
2001-2002 Phillip Brian Harper, "Social Identity, Abstractionist Aesthetics, and Prospects for Cultural Critique"
2000-2001 Douglas Crimp, "Mario Montez, For Shame"
1999-2000 Meaghan Morris, "True Lies: History and Class Consciousness in Action Cinema"
1998-1999 Rosalyn Deutsche, "Reasonable Urbanism"
1997-1998 Lee Edelman, “The Future is Kid Stuff: Queer Theory, Disidentification, and the Death Drive"
1996-1997 Richard Meyer, “Vanishing Points: Art, AIDS, and the Uses of Censorship”