Jess Dorrance is a writer, curator, activist, and and doctoral student in Performance Studies at University of California, Berkeley. She writes about the intersections between art, performance, and queer, feminist, and anti-racist politics. She holds an MA in Art History (2014) from McGill University (thesis on queer visibility, representation, and trauma), and has been working with the Institute for Queer Theory since 2008.
While living in Berlin (2008-2012) Jess has been actively envolved in all areas of running the Institute for Queer Theory: Among others, she co-organize the event “Geocultures & Panic: Perverted” (2008), the conference “Queer Futurities – today” (2009) and the workshop “The Sexual Politics of Utopia” (2009), and curated short film programs for activist and academic events, including “Oh Economy, Up Yours!” (Berlin, 2010) and “Time-Queering Against the Grain: Utopic Visions That Can’t Be Stopped” (Berlin, 2009). Since 2011 she organizes, with Dr. Antke Engel and the Institute for Queer Theory Berlin, an ongoing series of events on the power of images, queer art, and politics called Bossing Images, and co-edited the book Bossing Images (NGBK, 2012).
Jess was an ARC Fellow in Spring 2019 – she was chosen in the Graduate Student Fellow category.