Posted on March 11, 2024 | Last year, I spoke about my book Queer Diplomacy to over a hundred people at five universities and a bookstore – in the US, Canada, Sweden and the UK. After years of incubating these ideas, it was so satisfying to set them free to circulate the world of ideas.
- In January 2023, I spoke to graduate students at the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. They came prepared – having read excerpts of my book – leading to a lively Q&A that touched on post-colonial constructs of sexuality and the role of US foreign policy. The Patterson School has a dynamic Master’s program with an impressive faculty that prepares graduates for careers as foreign service officers, business leaders and community advocates. In 2014 and 2015, I was in Lexington as Diplomat in Residence; the year was gratifying and intellectually stimulating at a time when I was travelling to Geneva and New York to research the UN human rights system.
- In April 2023, I travelled to Sweden to speak to students in the University of Gothenburg’s Gender and Diplomacy Program in the Department of Political Science, under the leadership of Dr. Ann Towns, an expert on the gendered practices and hierarchies in diplomacy. During my presentation and our frank discussion that ensued, I was impressed with the diverse backgrounds, interests and theoretical perspectives of the scholars I met. I wandered the rainy streets and explored the cozy cafes around the massive campus, eavesdropping on intellectual discussions percolating throughout a new and hopeful generation of global citizens.
- In April 2023, I also visited Queen Elizabeth House, the nerve-centre of the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development. My lecture to graduate students about my book was organized by Dr. Corneliu Bjola, a global expert on digital diplomacy and strategies for countering disinformation and propaganda. The students took careful notes: very polite and a bit reserved! Some sought out my views on the UN Human Rights Council; others were probed the intersection of queer identity and diplomacy. As they pondered the careers in international affairs that unfolded before them, I fondly recalled a time of great idealism and my hunger to absorb, sponge-like, new ways of knowing.
- In May 2023, I spoke to members of the queer community about my book at the Glad Day Bookstore in Toronto. The event was organized by Dignity Network Canada, a coalition of Canadian organizations working to strengthen global LGBTQ rights, and moderated by Dr. Momin Rahman, a sociologist and expert on queer identity at Trent University. This talk was recorded, and excerpts appeared on a podcast on CBC IDEAS on February 7, 2024.
- In July 2023, I was invited by Dr. Nadine Fabbi, a Canadian Studies scholar at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies, to do a lecture on global homophia. UW helped develop a two-day global studies seminar for community college faculty from across Washington state coming from a wide array of disciplines and perspectives. The overarching theme was a commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DIE), a movement now under attack in many quarters of the USA. I was struck by the difference in the questions of these participants – with more lived experience, they viscerally connected to the links I made between the personal and the political in my research.
- In November 2023, I participated in a panel discussion in my hometown, at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies. Titled “Queer Diplomacy,” the well-attended panel was organized by Dr. Stephen Brown, a leading scholar on global LGBT rights, decolonization, and the impact of decriminalization in the Global South. The event was co-sponsored by Dignity Network Canada, the German Embassy in Ottawa, and the Pride Network at Global Affairs Canada. I was in excellent company; the other speakers were: German diplomat Karina Hausimeier; Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity; and Caleb Orozco, Executive Director of UNIBAM – an LGBT human rights organization in Belize – who joined via videolink. We were peppered with a range of questions that reflected the diverse experience of the audience, which included foreign diplomats, Canadian policymakers, human rights advocates, and academics. I slept well that night, grateful in the knowledge that, a year after its publication, Queer Diplomacy did not live in an ivory tower: it was “out there” for the world to debate! A two-hour YouTube video of the panel discussion is available here.