Queer Lecture Series: Writing Queer Memory and Desire in Andrew Haigh’s "All of Us Strangers"

How do we make others believe in us? What forms of make-believe, image-making, and language-games do we engage in so that those with whom we are intimate might “know who we are,” so that they may in fact believe in who we imagine ourselves to be? In Haigh’s cinematic world, then, writing transforms the world-building of relationships. Writing, which plays no small role in the scene of his films, is the lynchpin in the cinematic world he creates. It is precisely the “graphie”—the manner of writing—through which make-believe, making believe in self and other, takes place.

Presented by David Gerstner, Professor of Cinema Studies, Department of Media Culture

David A. Gerstner is a Professor of Cinema Studies in the Department of Media Culture at The City University of New York’s College of Staten Island. He also serves as a member of the Doctoral Faculty in The Graduate Center CUNY’s Film Studies Certificate Program/Department of Theater. In 2024, he was awarded the Chevalier de l’ Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has authored multiple books and articles on queer film studies and French and U.S. cinemas. His books include, Queer Imaginings: On Writing and Cinematic Friendship (2023); Christophe Honoré: A Critical Introduction; Queer Pollen: White Seduction, Black Male Homosexuality, and the Cinematic; and The Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture (editor, 2006—New York Public Library “Best of Reference,”2007). He is co-editor, with Cáel Keegan, of the book series, Queer Screens with Wayne State University Press. He completed a short film, “Between Men: A Historical Fantasy,” in 2021.

For more information, contact Jeremiah.Jurkiewicz@csi.cuny.edu or 718.982.3091