What We Desire: Critical Perspectives on Beauty, Pleasure, and Value
Fri, May 1, 2026
1:00 PM–8:30 PM
Rooms 8301/8304 & 9206/9207 at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave. Free and open to all. Registration suggested.
Join us for the English Student Association (ESA) conference, What We Desire: Critical Perspectives on Beauty, Pleasure and Value on Friday, May 1, 2026 at the CUNY Graduate Center, featuring a keynote lecture “May Day Underground: On Festivity and Revolt” from Professor Jospeh Albernaz (Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University).
The ESA invites students across all departments and disciplines for a critical investigation into the question of desire through beauty, pleasure, and value. Among the questions this conference asks is, how is desire formed by the systems, memories, and material conditions through which value is produced, circulated, and lived? How does desire shape our understanding of value itself? We invite interdisciplinary, critical and/or creative approaches that examine the politics of desire and value.
Conference Schedule and Agenda
Read or download the schedule and agenda below:
Conference Poster
This conference is co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, the English Student Association (ESA), and the Doctoral and Graduate Students’ Council at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Call for Papers
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