Abstract: Tongson will discuss her new book Normporn, a meditation on letting go of grief that began on an intimate scale of (self) examination and expanded to a broader political and cultural inquiry into the television that soothes queer viewers--sometimes against their better aesthetic and political judgment. In the wake of the book's release, however, new traumas both personal and global emerged, posing a challenge to the author's cruel optimism about the "end" of cycles of loss and bereavement. The presentation is an honest assessment of the world bound by the book, and what shattered its resolutions.