Speaker Series
Fall 2025 will + GSS Speaker Series
Pidgeon Pagonis
Book talk on Nobody Needs to Know: A Memoir
Friday, October 3 | 12:00 PM | Humanities Commons
Pidgeon Pagonis, MA, has worked for over a decade as an intersex advocate, speaker, consultant, photographer, and filmmaker to shed light on the human rights violations endured by intersex people. Their goal is to help end the non-consensual irreversible medical procedures meant to discipline unruly intersex bodies. Their work has been essential for those who want to show up for intersex people in their lives but aren’t sure where to start.
Whether advancing the intersex cause as the co-founder of the Intersex Justice Project (IJP), co-producing viral informational videos, creating art that centers intersex voices, appearing on the cover of the National Geographic “Gender Revolution” special issue, or being honored as a LGBT Champion of Change by the Obama White House, Pidgeon has staked out a place at the forefront of debates on intersexuality. In 2020, IJP’s #EndIntersexSurgery campaign succeeded in Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago becoming the first in the nation to halt and apologize for intersex surgeries. Little A Press published their memoir Nobody Needs to Know in 2023.
Megan Poole | Assistant Professor of Rhetoric & Writing, University of Texas at Austin
Monday, October 27 | 4:30 PM | Humanities Commons
Our attempts to understand the world are always more than rational. Even scientists frequently describe their findings in the language of beauty. This talk, taken from Poole’s new book, discusses how beauty is integral to how scientific research works. To start understanding this idea, we’ll listen to the songs of humpback whales, observe the colorful plumage of birds, watch the dances of jumping spiders, and consider the caretaking practices of elephants. Finally, Poole will consider the listening practices of biologists who study anthropogenic noise, specifically thinking through how human noise alters marine mammal communication in populations already stressed by rapidly changing conditions in ocean temperature and food sources in the wake of climate change.
Throughout this talk, Poole’s feminist approach to science studies illustrates what happens when researchers disrupt traditional notions of what science is, where science happens, and—most importantly—who can be considered a scientist.
Photography and recording of all events are strictly prohibited without express permission from the speaker.