Queer Natures: Animals, Environment and Modern Sexual Knowledge Production (1860s to 1930s and today)
Image credit - Ezra W Smith
Dr Ina Linge (Languages, Cultures and Visual Studies, HASS)
This project is funded by an AHRC Catalyst grant (2024-26).
“Queer Natures” explores how German-speaking artists, scientists, and writers between the 1860s and 1930s mobilised knowledge about non-human animals and their environments to shape fresh ideas about the place of LGBTQ+ people in a just society. In this transformative period in German culture, groundbreaking ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality took root. This project uniquely reveals how these critical thinkers navigated complex and deeply politicized conversations about sexual identity by drawing on the interconnectedness of human and non-human worlds.
Through a critical-creative approach, “Queer Natures” seeks to bring the cross-cultural histories of queerness and nature to a wider English-speaking audience. Today, this work resonates strongly as environmental and gender politics have become battlegrounds for right-wing populism, which frames them as inseparable aspects of progressive agendas. By examining how these issues were entangled over a century ago, my project aims to shed light on why they remain so politically charged today.
In collaboration with Associate Artists SK Marley (young-adult fiction writer), Siân Docksey (comedian and pole artist), and Kali Varghese (formerly Charlie George, comedian and writer), this project will engage LGBTQ+ community groups to develop innovative, creative-critical methods for co-producing research with LGBTQ+ audiences.
