In her recent book, Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes Us, Karen Tongson describes normporn as “a subgenre of television and a type of viewing practice where someone watches certain soothing, boring, or ‘vanilla’ shows for emotional release.” Why, she asks, are many queer viewers drawn to television programs such as Gilmore Girls or This Is Us that feature idealized, normative depictions of heterosexual, middle-class family life? How does normporn enable novel forms of queer sociality? What kinds of cultural and political work accompany the viewing practices of normporn, especially in our current historical moment? These questions animate Tongson’s scholarly work and her cultural criticism as in the popular podcasts Pop Rocket, Waiting to Xhale, and most recently The Art of Grief. 

In 2019, Karen Tongson was awarded Lambda Literary’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction. She directs the Mellon-funded Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race & Public Culture at USC Dornsife, where she is Chair and Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies, with joint appointments in English, and American Studies & Ethnicity. She co-hosts the podcasts The Art of Griefwith Dr. Megan Auster-Rosen, & The Gaymazing Race with Nicole J. Georges. Tongson is also a Presidential Visiting Fellow at Yale University for the 2024-25 academic year and the Spring '25 LeBoff Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Media, Culture & Communication at NYU.

This event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Dean of the Faculty, Media Studies, Sociology, and Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies.