Celebrated literary theorist Sianne Ngai will discuss her most recent book, Theory of the Gimmick, at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, March 6 via livestream in the K-State Union’s Wildcat Chamber. The event will also be presented via Zoom; registration for the Zoom option is available at tinyurl.com/ngaikstate.
This hour-long conversation is the featured event in Kansas State University’s 35th Annual Cultural Studies Symposium and the culmination of a year-long series of seminars focused on Ngai’s aesthetic theory.
The Symposium has been an annual highlight of the Concentration in Cultural Studies, since its founding in 1991, and it has featured a distinguished array of cultural critics and theorists from Lawrence Grossberg, Michael Bérubé, and Tricia Rose to Jack Halberstam, Katherine Hayles, and Fred Moten.
Ngai is the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, where she teaches courses in American literature and literary theory in the Department of English. Her trio of books—Ugly Feelings (2005), Our Aesthetic Categories (2012), and Theory of the Gimmick (2020)—have redefined aesthetic theory for literary and cultural studies in our era. “One of the significant thinkers of our time, Professor Ngai revises how we approach literature, art, and the world,” said Lisa Tatonetti, Professor of English and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar. “Her theory of the ‘gimmick’ in texts and entertainment is revelatory.”
The conversation with Ngai will be moderated by Michele Janette, Professor of English, who helped lead the seminar discussions across the 2025-26 school year. She noted that Ngai’s work helps us to rethink not only literature and entertainment but also its economic context: “Sianne Ngai’s theorization of affect has given us new ways to think about contemporary capitalism in aesthetic terms. She gives us tools to notice and assess the ways we are provoked to feel and to judge. She gives us language to describe and analyze the ways in which the world often promises too much and delivers too little. In teaching us to see the pervasive gimmickry of capitalism, she helps us navigate its contemporary exhaustion.”
Ngai’s upcoming appearance at the Cultural Studies Symposium is generating excitement among K-State faculty, staff, and students. “Sianne Ngai is one of the foremost contemporary affect theorists whose intellectual breadth is impressive,” said Tom Sarmiento, Associate Professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Studies: “I’m excited to learn from her, especially having assigned her work in my courses. K-State is lucky to have her visit with us virtually.”
Tanya Gonzalez, Professor of English, added, “Ngai’s theory of the gimmick gives us yet another fun and playful way to think about movies, books, theatre, and art. I can’t wait to hear more during her talk, and to find out more about her next project.”
More information about Ngai’s work is available on her university website.
The event is sponsored by the English Department in Kansas State University’s College of Arts and Sciences and the Department’s graduate Concentration in Cultural Studies.
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