29th Annual WGSS Student Research Symposium

Friday, April 24, 2026 - Bone Student Center's Circus, Old Main, and Founders Rooms 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM

2026 Keynote Speaker Sarah Ensor

Sarah Ensor is an Assistant Professor of English at UW–Madison, where she is also a faculty associate in the Nelson Institute’s Center for History, Culture, and Environment. Her work engages the intersections between queer and environmental thought in American literature from the nineteenth century through the present. Her current book project, Queer Lasting: Ecologies of Care at Future’s End, asks what contemporary environmental thought’s seemingly necessary emphasis on the future has rendered unthinkable, and looks to scenes of queer extinction for alternate grammars of continuance and care. With Susan Scott Parrish, she co-edited The Cambridge Companion to American Literature and the Environment, which was published in 2022. Before arriving in Madison, she was an Assistant Professor of English at Portland State University and the University of Michigan.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information please contact Jamie Anderson (jlande4@ilstu.edu).

Climate and Inclusion Statement

The organizers of The Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Student Research Symposium are committed to providing a harassment-free symposium experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, national origin, ethnicity, or religion. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference at the discretion of the conference organizers.

Harassment includes, but is not limited to:

• Verbal comments that reinforce social structures of domination related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, ethnicity, religion
• Sexual images in public spaces
• Deliberate intimidation, stalking, or following
• Harassing photography or recording
• Sustained disruption of talks or other events
• Inappropriate physical contact
• Unwelcome sexual attention
• Use of a recording device (mobile phone, camera, etc.) to capture images or presentations, chats, demonstrations, etc. taking place during the annual conference
• Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior

Land Acknowledgement

Illinois State University was built on and has benefitted from the land stolen from multiple Indigenous Nations. These lands were the traditional birthright of Indigenous Peoples who were forcibly removed and dispossessed of their land by settlers. Normal, IL is on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskasia, Piankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe Nations. As settlers, we recognize that we have a responsibility to continue to learn, teach, and understand Indigenous histories and present-day realities as they pertain to these Nations as well as to confront the ongoing violence of settler colonialism.

The WGSS Symposium is sponsored by:

• The Alice and Fannie Fell Trust
• College of Arts and Sciences
• Department of Criminal Justice Sciences
• Department of English
• Department of Geography, Geology, and the Environment
• Harold K. Sage Fund
• Office of International Engagement
• Milner Library
• Department of Philosophy
• Department of Politics and Government
• Department of Psychology
• School of Social Work
• Department of Sociology and Anthropology
• School of Theatre, Dance, and Film
• Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program