Academic Networks
From 2022-2026, I was a co-convenor of the postgraduate network Queer Intersections Oxford, an expressly interdisciplinary space for queer, trans, and feminist studies. In this role, I organised panels, roundtables, socials, conversations with activists, and performance events.
From 2021-2025 I also ran QUEERCAMP, a reading group exploring LGBTQ+ voices, cultures, and histories from across Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. I founded the group in Oxford with Nick Mayhew, and it grew to include participants at multiple UK universities. We held fortnightly discussions on topics ranging from drag culture in Kazakhstan and Russia; LGBTQ+ Ukrainian voices during wartime; same-sex intimacy in the Gulag; queer and genderqueer fashion in Georgia, Ukraine and Russia; trans/non-binary self-expression across different languages; and much more.
Conference Organisation
2026. ‘Queer Alternative Fictions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia’. University of Bristol. CfP open now.
2025. ‘Queer Creativity: Bringing Eastern European and Central Asian Research to Life’. University of Oxford.
Board Game Design
In 2022, I published the area control game Theurgy with my partner Oliver Josiah. Players take on the role of half-forgotten gods and command their acolytes to spread the word, perform miracles, summon monsters, and have temples built in their honour. Did I mention that one of the gods is canonically genderless, and another non-binary?
Rowan Dowling 