30% Code: E26CGNDR

Cisgender: Disorienting a Category

Thanks @AndreaPitts for this! "With humor & tenderness, Zurn challenges readers to revisit the complexity of an undertheorized term" "explor[ing] the lives of gender variant & conforming peoples, systems of power, & the many possibilities for connection in shared struggle." dukeupress.edu/cisgender

I really feel this.

different chemicals, no?

AU's honors program started in 1959. One of its professors described its objective thus: "to make the student think strangely." Defamiliarize habits of thought, & thereby equip students to critically engage across difference & construct meaningful beliefs of their own. I like it: THINK STRANGELY.

(1/2) you have to love your way into a relationship with that unseen thing. & you have to wait (and wait, and wait) for it to slowly come in and out of focus. maybe I've been a person of faith all along.

having long ago relinquished the faith of my youth, I've not considered myself a person of faith. but lately I have been impressed with how much damn faith, and hope, and love research & writing require. you have to believe something is there that you can't see (no one can see).

GradCon | Department of English Department of English at Stony Brook University

Last weekend, I had the incredible experience of keynoting SUNY Stony Brook's grad conference on "Curiosity and Care." I actually gave my very first talk, as a young grad student, at Stony Brook. An honor to return & learn from all these grads doing amazing work!
www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/engl...

All, I recently became aware of this book set entitled WOMAN: IN ALL AGES AND IN ALL COUNTRIES (1907). Grandiose indeed. And of course, none of its 10 volumes was written by a woman.

in the annals of university genders...

Finally! crocuses

Cisgender: Disorienting a Category

You can now pre-order *Cisgender: Disorienting a Category* (out in July) for $20 from Duke UP with a 30% off! Code: E26CGNDR.

Really grateful, too, for these amazing blurbs from Susan Stryker and C. Riley Snorton!

dukeupress.edu/cisgender

Enjoyed this blog post by Sarah Tyson and Andrew Dilts: blog.apaonline.org/2026/02/04/i...

Theory of Water

I'm excited to teach a "Nonhuman Philosophies" grad course this fall. I'd actually like to focus it not only on the nonhuman, but the nonanimal. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's new *Theory of Water* is one I'm thinking about including. Would welcome other ideas!
www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2533-t...

Look who is reading this book with me! (Or teaching me?)

Del McWhorter, Unbecoming Persons (2025), pictured with stink bug.

The ice is falling. I’m shoveling our place. And the 92 year old neighbor’s. And another neighbor walks up and hands me a steaming loaf of fresh baked bread. How to even comprehend that I am alive for this. For now. Today. And how quickly, and cruelly, those todays can be taken.

Proofs for *Cisgender: Disorienting a Category*! Almost done!

Once, I was on-campus interviewing. We were walking to a restaurant & I was trying to be engaging in conversation (& avoid other people on the sidewalk). & BAM! I hit a parking meter in the face, while my limbs wrapped it in an awkward embrace. This was a great intro to me. #on-campus-memories

So overwhelmed by the current moment. Wondering when we're just all in the streets until something changes. But also knowing that each of us has to know and use our gifts to the hilt. Teaching and writing the stories that can free us is part of that for me.

Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (ASTERISK) Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (ASTERISK) [Zurn, Perry] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Cisgender: Disorienting a Category (ASTERISK)

In 2023, Elon Musk banned the words cis and cisgender from Twitter. That's when I started writing this book. What could be so powerful, dangerous, & unsettling about these words? Where did they come from? And how might we reimagine them today?

Available for preorder: www.amazon.com/Cisgender-Di...

Honored to make some "Best of 2025" lists this month! Huge thanks to @dukepress.bsky.social for giving *How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University* a home.

In January, I start teaching a grad seminar on disability justice. I'd welcome word of any favorite pieces/books you might have!

[image of a stack of books in disability studies--books I'm thinking with, though not necessarily teaching]

In which a blue butterfly erases my to-do list …

Can't believe my twin and I spent almost a year like this!

This happens to me almost every day!

American University was founded as a Methodist institution and maintains ties to this day. Digging into that history, I found this lovely invitation by the chaplain in 1962: "No Office Hours. Come When Unexpected." Home and office addresses were then given.

Exactly the sort of thing you want to find in the archives …

Really excited to be sharing work on Cornell's own trans histories tonight! As part of trans awareness week.

Whenever I make up a word (we need more for the things I think about), copyeditors say, "Hey. That's not a word. Use a dictionary word." I want to reply: "Hey. How do you think words got in the dictionary?!" What is this regime where we can't publish new words? Where did it come from? whywhywhy

I definitely do this.