Hunt-Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies
The Hunt-Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies (HISS@SSSHARC) brings together emerging and established researchers within queer theory, LGBTQIA+ studies, and their cognate fields. Since its inception in 2023, HISS@SSSHARC has been centered on embodied learning and collective knowledge building in and around the classroom. Building on generalist subjects rather than specialist disciplines, participants engage in a series of workshops led by internationally successful queer professionals. The Institute is built on the observation that all of us, young or old, established or emerging, have been school students at some time and might usefully revisit that experience in a queer-led context.
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HISS was always conceived as a three-year venture. Across HISS 2023 and 2024, the HISS faculty and students learned a lot about cohort building. In HISS 2025, we want to reflect on what we have learned under the theme of Homecoming.
Homecoming is a term from the North American schooling system and other metaverses that signals a particular kind of reunion or coming together with institutional or franchise purpose.
The HISS Homecoming will allow us to collectively reflect on and generate some provisional closure around the queer educational journey we commenced three years ago.
We know that the moment of teaching is not necessarily in sync with the time of learning, so we want to find out how our alumni are faring in their lives and careers and if the experience of HISS shaped them in any way. Those experiences have certainly shaped us.
We also want to provide a laddered environment where HISS alumni can facilitate the induction of a new cohort into the HISS paradigm.
Above all, we want the last dance to generate a school charter that we can publish alongside the HISS Yearbook of school photographs and reflections from the contributors across the three-year span of our experimental school.
As always, these reflections will happen in class, as we run through the standard curriculum of sex education, physical education, science and art, and lunch together at the long tables in the Women’s College canteen.
By situating inclusivity in the broader context of schooling, learning and pedagogy, we hope to bring out new understandings of attachment, friendship, community, affect and thriving that could underwrite a new kind of charter for queer learning in place.
As in previous years, the HISS faculty will lead two-hour workshops loosely linked to their research expertise.
Everyone – including all the faculty members – will participate in these workshops, which are framed as revisitings of classroom subjects of the kind we all used to learn before we became divided by disciplinary specialism.
HISS participants can expect to attend classes in Art, Science, Music, Media, Sex Education and P.E.
We understand that much school learning occurs outside the classroom, so fieldtrips will be arranged, as well as school photographs.
There will be a formal (the Australian version of a prom) to mark the end of school.
HISS 2025 will be co-directed by Lee Wallace and Victoria Rawlings. The international teaching cohort represents the full breadth of sexuality studies and a full range of career stages. Our confirmed contributors are:
Associate Professor Adam Greteman (Art Education, SAIC), also participated in the delivery of HISS 2023 and 2024. Adam has written on liking and queer thriving in education settings. He is a key investigator in a project on intergenerational dialogue between queer seniors and queer youth that has recently received funding from the Spencer Foundation.
Dr Xavier Ho (Interaction Design, Monash University) is an emerging leader in queer game studies. Xavier contributed to HISS 2023 and 2024 and was the creative force behind the “45” light mural and Pride at Play, an exhibition showcasing 23 queer games from around the Asia Pacific region, both of which featured in Pride Amplified in association with WorldPride Sydney.
Professor Yuko Itatsu (Information Studies, University of Tokyo) has a current interdisciplinary project on Artificial Intelligence and diversity. Yuko participated in HISS 2024.
Professor Pamela Lannutti, directs the Centre for Human Sexuality Studies at Widener University. Pamela is an expert on queer relationship maintenance, resilience and sustainability, as well as family communication and estrangement. Pam delivered our Sex Education class in 2024.
Dr Sam Stiegler (Education, University of Melbourne) contributed to HISS in 2023 and his first book was launched at HISS 2024. Sam is an expert on qualitative research methodologies in the queer, trans and non-binary youth space.
Dr Indigo Willing (Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University) is a leading scholar in the emerging field of skateboard studies. As a consultant, Indigo has led projects on diversity, equity, and inclusion development for Skate Australia (2022) and conducted scoping research on anti-Asian racism and strategies to challenge it for the Australian Human Rights Commission (2023). Indigo contributed to HISS 2024.
Dr Kush Patel (Art, Design, and Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education) joins us for the first time in 2025. Kush is a scholar of participatory politics, narrative building and the social production of space, as well as a registered architect. He heads the Just Futures Co-lab at Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Bengaluru, India.
Dr Jessica Wright (Sociology and Gender Studies, MacEwan University) joins us from Edmonton in 2025. JJ’s current work focuses on understanding meaning-making about consent and gendered violence through the perspectives of queer and trans young people.