ALICE CENTAMORE & MATVEI YANKELEVICH
CONTEND WITH
MONIQUE WITTIG
Free, RSVP required
CONTEND WITH
MONIQUE WITTIG
Free, RSVP required
Wednesday,
December 3, 2025
6:30
Doors
7pm
Event begins
Limited capacity
With:
Sharon Hayes
Carolyn Lazard
Jerry Lieblich
Ksenia M. Soboleva
A.L. Steiner
This event will be streamed live on Montez Press Radio
December 3, 2025
6:30
Doors
7pm
Event begins
Limited capacity
With:
Sharon Hayes
Carolyn Lazard
Jerry Lieblich
Ksenia M. Soboleva
A.L. Steiner
This event will be streamed live on Montez Press Radio
In 1973, French writer, theorist, and activist Monique Wittig published The Lesbian Body, a genre- and gender-breaking work of theory-fiction that challenged the order of heterosexuality in literature. Wittig celebrates sites of pleasure and lesbian eros through expressions of joy, violence, and tenderness, and her transfiguration of gender and its paradigms transformed French vocabulary by lesbianizing grammar and myths.
Its appearance in English in 1975 made quite an impression as well. “For me,” Judith Butler would confess, “Wittig opened up a sense of the world that had been unimaginable. She tore us apart.”
Its appearance in English in 1975 made quite an impression as well. “For me,” Judith Butler would confess, “Wittig opened up a sense of the world that had been unimaginable. She tore us apart.”
The writers Alice Centamore and Matvei Yankelevich discovered that the translation didn’t satisfy Wittig, and, following her notes in the margins, they revised it to foreground her typographic innovations and render in English her revisionist approach to language.
For this event, fifty years after its first appearance in English, Alice and Matvei bring together a range of artists who perform and respond to their favorite passages in the book. The artists Sharon Hayes, Carolyn Lazard, and A.L. Steiner, along with the playwright Jerry Lieblich and the art historian Ksenia M. Soboleva collectively reflect on the book’s utopian project from today’s vantage.
As Jack Halberstam promises, “you will never think straight again.”
The Lesbian Body, with a new introduction by Paul B. Preciado, is published by Winter Editions.
This event is made possible thanks to support from the Jan Michalski Foundation.
For this event, fifty years after its first appearance in English, Alice and Matvei bring together a range of artists who perform and respond to their favorite passages in the book. The artists Sharon Hayes, Carolyn Lazard, and A.L. Steiner, along with the playwright Jerry Lieblich and the art historian Ksenia M. Soboleva collectively reflect on the book’s utopian project from today’s vantage.
As Jack Halberstam promises, “you will never think straight again.”
The Lesbian Body, with a new introduction by Paul B. Preciado, is published by Winter Editions.
This event is made possible thanks to support from the Jan Michalski Foundation.
Novelist, poet, theorist, and activist, Monique Wittig (1935–2003) burst onto the literary scene with her novel, The Opoponax, in 1964, which won the Medicis Prize and the attention of writers of the French New Wave. Her second novel, Les Guérillères, was written against the backdrop of the May 1968 student and worker revolt. In 1970, she co-founded the Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF) in France and penned its manifesto. Despite her activism, Wittig was sidelined from the MLF due to her resolute advocacy of lesbianism within materialist feminist discourse. In the mid-’70s, soon after publishing the formally radical The Lesbian Body, Wittig relocated to the United States with her partner, Sande Zeig, with whom she co-wrote Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary. Living in Northern California, she wrote the novel Across the Acheron, the political essays collected in The Straight Mind and Other Essays, a novella, a play, and two film scripts. She taught as a visiting professor at a variety of colleges, later joining the faculty of the University of Arizona. Widely published from the 1960s to the 1990s, her work is now animating a new wave of feminist and queer thought.
Alice Centamore is a researcher, editor, and occasional translator. Their work explores material and literary articulations of queer communal life through poetry, prose, and experimental forms.
Matvei Yankelevich is a poet and translator whose books include Dead Winter (Fonograf) and Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook). He is the editor of World Poetry, a nonprofit publisher of poetry in translation, and proprietor-editor of the small press Winter Editions.
Alice Centamore is a researcher, editor, and occasional translator. Their work explores material and literary articulations of queer communal life through poetry, prose, and experimental forms.
Matvei Yankelevich is a poet and translator whose books include Dead Winter (Fonograf) and Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms (Overlook). He is the editor of World Poetry, a nonprofit publisher of poetry in translation, and proprietor-editor of the small press Winter Editions.
Sharon Hayes is an artist who works with video, performance, sound, and public sculpture to reveal the intersections of history, politics, and speech. Her work engages in dialogue and collective resonance with a diverse range of actions, voices, and practices that resist normative behaviors, unjust social contracts, and rigid timelines
Carolyn Lazard is an artist based in Philadelphia and New York. Their primary medium is iteration. Their practice remembers the generative incapacity of debility.
Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands between theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Recent plays include The Barbarians (LaMama) and Mahinerator (The Tank), and their next show, without mirrors, a solo show for David Greenspan, premieres at The Brick in February 2026. www.thirdear.nyc
Dr. Ksenia M. Soboleva is a New York based writer and art historian specializing in queer art and culture. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.
A.L. Steiner is a multidisciplinary artist + serial collaborator based in New York. She is co-curator of Ridykeulous, co-founder of Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) and faculty at Yale University's School of Art.
Carolyn Lazard is an artist based in Philadelphia and New York. Their primary medium is iteration. Their practice remembers the generative incapacity of debility.
Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands between theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Recent plays include The Barbarians (LaMama) and Mahinerator (The Tank), and their next show, without mirrors, a solo show for David Greenspan, premieres at The Brick in February 2026. www.thirdear.nyc
Dr. Ksenia M. Soboleva is a New York based writer and art historian specializing in queer art and culture. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.
A.L. Steiner is a multidisciplinary artist + serial collaborator based in New York. She is co-curator of Ridykeulous, co-founder of Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) and faculty at Yale University's School of Art.
Due to the age and character of the building, the space is not optimized for ADA accessibility and is located up a single flight of 20 stairs with handrails. If you have questions about access, please contact us in advance of the event, and we will make every effort to accommodate you.
