Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Gender as a Category of Knowledge

PhD Project:

Novel Families: Literary and Juridical Variations on a Queer National Theme

Description of the Project

The dissertation topic focused on literary, legal, and political re-figurations of the nexus between family and queerness in the USA at the beginning of the 21st century. The project took as its starting point the intersection of two discursive events, namely societal debates about LGBT »novel families« on the one hand and the advent of
queer presences in neo-realist »family novels« on the other. The project looked at pro-same-sex legal decisions and the political debates surrounding definitions of the family, as well as at family novels (The Corrections, Lipshitz Six) and their representations of queer voices and characters. By examining »the family,« this project honed in on the main theater for the production of gender and sexual knowledge, and examined the functions and results of the interaction of queerness and family in two different discursive arenas.

Particulars

Anson Koch-Rein, studied American studies and gender studies in Berlin, a member of the Research Training Group from 2007 to 2008, PhD Candidate at the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, finished dissertation project »Mirrors, Monsters, Metaphors: Transgender Rhetorics and Dysphoric Knowledge« in May 2014. 2014-2016: Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, Middlebury College (Vermont, USA). 2016-2019 Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA). 2019 - Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston-Salem, NC).

Selected Publications

“TransGerman Drag: Travestie für Deutschland, Homonationalisms, and Transgender Citizenship.”In:  Haakenson, Thomas, Tirza Latimer, Carol Hager, Deborah Barton (Hg.). Becoming TransGerman: Cultural Identity Beyond Geography. New York, NY: Peter Lang (2019): 44-61.

“ Was war Geschlecht? Debatten um Trans(sexualität) in der Bundesrepublik.” Review of Adrian de Silva. “Negotiating the Borders of the Gender Regime.” querelles-net Rezensionszeitschrift für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung 20.1 (2019).

“Trans-lating the Monster: Transgender Affect and Frankenstein.” LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 30.1 (February 2019): 44-61.    

“Feeling Backward with Albert Nobbs.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 5.4 (2018): 686-690.

Contact

www.ansonkochrein.wordpress.com