“Mixing Pronouns” with Sue Lanser (Queer Forms and Pronouns Series)
Come along for a deep dive into mixed pronouns in queer, trans and nonbinary narratives with none other than Sue Lanser, your favourite narratologist’s favourite narratologist. Sue and I talk about why we might need to rethink the concept of gender disguise narratives, where we find mixed pronouns in literary histories and why mixed pronouns often become sensual in literature. My favourite bit: Sue asks me about my personal hero, the Grinch.
This conversation is part of a miniseries that accompanies my book Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (Oxford University Press, 2026). I hope you like hearing more from your host, but not to worry: we will be back to our usual format in just a few weeks.
References
Sue Lanser’s The Sexuality of History
Sue Lanser’s Narrative Theory Unbound
Sue Lanser’s “Trans-forming Narratology” Narrative 32.2 (2024)
Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body
Le Roman de Silence
Michel de Montaigne’s Journal de Voyage
Margaret Cavendish’s Assaulted and Pursued Chastity
Lyly’s Galatea
Chevalièr(e) d’Éon
Alex Myers’ Revolutionary
Deborah Samson
Jenny Fran Davis’ Dykette
Isaac Fellman’s Dead Collections
Spiel, Katta, Os Keyes, and Pınar Barlas. 2019. ‘Patching Gender: Non-Binary Utopias in HCI’. Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, May 2, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3310425.
The Grinch
Dr Seuss
Jim Carrey
Benedict Cumberbatch
Les Feinberg
Maggie Nelson
Harry Dodge
Jen Manion
Dean Spade
Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
- What role does narrative agency play in the difference between external and intrinsic pronoun ascription?
- Why does Susan suggest that we need to revisit Shakespeare’s and other’s gender disguise narratives?
- Susan mentions how characters that are perceived as masculine but use she/her are much more frequently ridiculed than characters viewed as feminine who use he/him. Why do you think that is?
- How has feminism expanded what ‘she/her’ can mean?
- How does mixing pronouns do similar or different work from singular they?
- Why does the Grinch, according to Lena, have big they energy?
