The Kessler award is given to a scholar who has, over a number of years, produced a substantive body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies. The awardee, who is chosen by the CLAGS Board of Directors, receives a monetary award and gives CLAGS’ annual Kessler Lecture. No applications or nominations are accepted for the Kessler award.
2021 David Eng: (Gay) Panic Attack 
2020 Roderick Ferguson: Queer and Trans Liberation and the Critique of Fascism 
2019 Jasbir Puar: A No-State “Solution”: Inter/nationalism and the Question of Queer Theory 
2018 Amber Hollibaugh: Hope and the Power of Desire: Our Vision for Changing the World 
2017 Sara Ahmed: Queer Use 
2016 Dean Spade: When We Win We Lose: Mainstreaming and the Redistribution of Respectability 
2015 Richard Fung: Re-Orientations: Shift and continuities in Asian Canadian queer and trans identities and activism 
2014 Cathy J. Cohen: #DoBlackLivesMatter: On Black Death and LGBTQ Politics 
2013 Cheryl Clarke: Queer Black Trouble: In Life, Literature, and the Age of Obama 
2012 Martin Duberman: Acceptance at What Price?: The Gay Movement Reconsidered 
2011 Kessler Conversations In Memory of Monique Wittig: Chitra Ganesh and Simone Leigh, Moderated by Dean Daderko 
2010 Urvashi Vaid What Can Brown Do For You?: Race, Sexuality and the Future of LGBT Politics 
2009 Sarah Schulman Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences 
2008 Susan Stryker Ghost Dances: A Trans-movement Manifesto 
2007 Douglas Crimp Action Around the Edges 
2006 Adrienne Rich Making Sex History: Obsessions of a Quarter Century 
2005 Carole Vance Travels With Sex 
2004 Isaac Julien 
2003 Gayle Rubin Geologies of Queer Studies: It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again 
2002 Jonathan Ned Katz 
2001 Judith Butler Global Violence, Sexual Politics 
2000 Cherri Moraga A Xicanadyke Codex of Changing Consciousness 
1999 John D’Emilio A Biographer and His Subject: Wrestling with Bayard Rustin 
1998 Eve Sedgwick A Dialogue on Love 
1997 Samuel R. Delany …3,2,1, Contact 
1996 Esther Newton My Butch Career: A Memoir 
1995 Monique Wittig Reading and Comments: Virgil, non/Across the Acheron 
1994 Barbara Smith African American Lesbian and Gay History: An Exploration 
1993 Edmund White The Personal is Political: Queer Fiction and Criticism 
1992 Joan Nestle “I Lift My Eyes to the Hill”: The Life of Mabel Hampton as Told by a White Woman
For videos of some of our Kessler Lectures check out our YouTube Channel and Playlist Kessler Lectures.