Stavro Distinguished Scholar Provides ‘Critical Thinking in Challenging Times’

Dr. Bonnie Honig, of Brown University, lectures as part of ongoing Community Speaker Series

September 20, 2022

Dr. Bonne Honig – this year’s Elaine Stavro Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Theory, Politics & Gender Studies – offered a thought-provoking lecture at Gzowski College on September 19 on the topic of ‘Toward a Democratic Theory of Contagion.’ 

Professor Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of MCM and Political Science at Brown University, spoke to an engaged audience in the Gathering Space as part of Trent University’s Community Speaker Series.  

The Elaine Stavro Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Theory, Politics & Gender Studies is exemplary of the critical thinking and community both desired and required for our challenging times, says Dr. Nadine Changfoot, professor of Political Studies at Trent University. 

“Dr. Bonnie Honig provided a highly thought provoking and new queer reading of J. L. Austin’s performative speech-action for expanding possibilities of political agency not thought prior, especially agency which is positioned against powers of shaming,” says Professor Changfoot. “In her outline of a democratic theory of contagion, Dr. Honig sees refusals which can be harmful and promising. Speech acts, which are the impetus, of doing hold the potential for separating individuals and communities from a starting point of assumed community, asserting community, and tolerating difference, each with affirmative and devaluing possibilities. This theory holds potential for interpreting and analyzing the agency of individuals and communities, especially of individual and collective refusals, within their specific contexts and against democratic claims.” 

Prof. Honig’s clear and approachable style offered a stirring lecture on the power of public discourse, adds Dr. Michael Eamon, principal Catharine Parr Traill College.  

“As a scholar of early Canadian print culture, I found her work extremely valuable particularly in promoting a better understanding of racialized and queer communities and will use these ideas moving forward in my own work,” Professor Eamon says. “The yearly Stavro Lecture always brings groundbreaking scholarship to Trent University in politics and theory and, once again, the audience was not disappointed.” 

Dr. Elaine Stavro, professor of Political Studies at Trent University, says the talk was a brilliant rethinking of Austin and Sedgwick.  

“Professor Honig challenges liberal heteronormativity,” Professor Stavro says.  

The lecture, made possible through generous donors, was created to introduce Trent students to leading speakers in humanities and social sciences and significantly build on the University's reputation for interdisciplinary programs. 

The next lecture in Trent’s Community Speaker Series will feature famed Indigenous artist Tomson Highway on Oct. 12, 2022. Learn more here.