2026 De Cecco Lecture Series with Karen Tongson

The Rest of Us: The Post-Apocalyptic 'Family' on TV. How does the queer concept of a "chosen family" find expression in a contemporary TV landscape replete with post-apocalyptic worlds? As a postscript to her recent book, Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV that Soothes Us (2023), Tongson's talk focuses on what happens to the "normporn" fantasy of the expansive, loving, liberal family after we lapse into dystopia and our political and environmental nightmares come to fruition. The talk gestures to recent "quality" series like Paradise, The Last of Us, PLUR1BUS, and Station 11. Karen Tongson is the award-winning author of Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV that Soothes Us (2023), Why Karen Carpenter Matters (2019), and Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries (2011). She is the Barbra Streisand Professor of Contemporary Gender Studies, Professor of English, Gender and Sexuality Studies and American Studies and Ethnicity at USC, where she also founded and directs the Mellon-funded Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race and Public Culture. Her writing and cultural commentary have appeared in Slate, NPR, The Los Angeles Review of Books, PBS NewsHour, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The AV Club, Entertainment Weekly and KCRW’s Good Food among other venues. In 2019, she received the Lambda Literary Jeanne Córdova Award for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction. She co-hosts The Gaymazing Race (a queer podcast about The Amazing Race) with Nicole J. Georges and The Art of Grief with Dr. Megan Auster-Rosen.