The Heteropessimists

Episode Two: Pessimism

In this episode, we ask the question: 'Just how pessimistic should we be?'Jane Ward is a professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at University of California Riverside, where she teaches courses in feminist, queer, and heterosexuality studies. She has written on a wide range of gender and sexuality topics, but it was her 2020 book The Tragedy of Heterosexuality that caught the attention of Dr Felicity Joseph - the existentialist-minded philosopher on our team. In this in-depth interview, Felicity reaches out to Jane Ward for some answers and suggestions to the dilemmas of mainstream heteronormative culture, whilst finding out more about the nature of this ‘tragic’ heterosexuality and what we can do about it…