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”