Queer Lit

The final episode of the Queer Forms and Pronouns series got a bit more personal than I expected. The incredible Teagan Bradway and I speak about misgendering ourselves, giving the gift of language to our loved ones and why not just the function but also the beauty of gender-nonconformity pronouns is politically and personally significant. We speak about my anxieties about it pronouns and how this plays out in different genres from speculative fiction to memoir. Teagan’s insights into narrative agency and pronominal shifts are incredibly helpful in taking one last deep dive into the world of pronouns.

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 after this one.  

References:
Bradway, Teagan. "Queer Narrative Theory and the Relationality of Form." PMLA 136.5 (2021): 711-727.
Bradway, Teagan, and Elizabeth Freeman, eds. Queer Kinship: Race, Sex, Belonging, Form. Duke University Press, 2022.
Bradway, Teagan. "Introduction: Queer Metarelationality." differences 35.3 (2024): 1-13.
Bradway, Teagan. "Queer Formalism." The Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans* Narrative Studies. Palgrave, 2025. 95-109.
https://teaganbradway.com/
Les Feinberg
Torrey Peters’ Stag Dance
Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot
Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood
Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer
Diane Watt
Jack Halberstam
Dana Luciano
Mel Y. Chen
Spivak pronouns (E/em/eir)
Isaac Fellman
Andrea Gibson
Hekanaho, Laura. "A thematic analysis of attitudes towards English nonbinary pronouns." Journal of Language and Sexuality 11.2 (2022): 190-216.
Mattheis, Lena. "Nonbinary Narration." The Palgrave Handbook of Feminist, Queer and Trans* Narrative Studies. Palgrave, 2025. 25-39.
Vera Nuenning
Corinna Assmann    

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     What does narrative agency have to do with pronouns? How might narrative point of view affect pronouns?
     Why do we discuss genre? What could the implications of discussing pronouns in speculative fiction be?
     How can ‘it’ pronouns allow us to think about gender, personhood and humanness?
     What are Spivak pronouns? You may want to look this up as we only mention them very briefly.
     What do Lena and Teagan think about mispronouning?
     Why do we speak about pronouns as a gift that is not always easy to give? How do you feel about sharing your pronouns or learning someone else’s?

The fantastic Jas Morgan is back for a conversation about pronouns in Two-Spirit literature! We think about how kinship is reflected in language, what role pronouns take on in translation and how they can easily be misunderstood, especially when working across cultures and languages. Our conversation is based on a dialogic chapter of Queer Forms and Pronouns, which I co-wrote with Kai Minosh Pyle.

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:
Kai Minosh Pyle
Jas Morgan’s “My Pronouns are Kiy/Kin”
https://web.archive.org/web/20210416065231/https://aabitagiizhig.com/2016/05/13/red-rising-my-pronouns-are-kiy-kin/
Jas Morgan’s nîtisânak
Riot Grrrl
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Wahkohtowin
Joshua Whitehead’s “A Queer Geography of Woundings”
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Lambda Literary Awards
Kin (web series)
Justin Ducharme
Aalayna
Ta’Kaiya Blaney
https://jasmorgan.com/2020/10/25/sewing-circle-kin-web-series/
@notvanishing (IG)  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     Why might pronouns work differently in Two-Spirit literature?
     What do pronouns have to do with kinship?
     How are pronouns connected to animacy?
     We speak about pronouns in translation between languages that attach gendered notions to them or not. How might this affect communication? Are pronouns gendered in your favourite language?
     What does Jas mean by ‘I am not a metaphor’?

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?

It was an incredible honour to have THE Susan Stryker join me for a chat about ambiguous pronouns, trans literature and linguistic creativity. Susan’s wealth of knowledge on pronouns across languages and literary history was incredibly enriching and allowed me to speak about some of my favourite examples of ambiguous pronoun use in literature.

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:
Susan Stryker’s “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix”
Susan Stryker’s Transgender History
Susan Stryker, Stephen Wittle, Aren Aizura (eds) The Transgender Studies Reader
Susan Stryker’s Changing Gender: The History and Future of a Concept (August 2026)
Sara Taylor’s The Lauras
Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s The Sleeping Hermaphrodite (1620)
Teagan Bradway
Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer (2019)
Lal Zimman
Rivers Solomon
Aphra Behn’s “To The Fair Clorinda” and “The Widow Ranter”
Thomas(ine) Hall
Nathaniel Bacon
Mel Y. Chen
Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
Andrea Gibson’s “Your Life”  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
     Which pronouns are ambiguous when it comes to gender in English? Which ones are ambiguous in your first or favourite language?
     What creates ambiguity when we use pronouns? How might this ambiguity be productive?
     Susan explains why gendered pronouns in English function in an unusual way compared to other languages. What is something new you learned about this?
     We speak about why literature can teach us something about pronoun use that we might overlook when focusing on grammar. What is that?
     Can you name one of the examples of ambiguous pronoun use in literature we discuss?

Welcome to a miniseries about gender nonconformity pronouns in literature! In this episode, the amazing linguist Laura Paterson asks me many clever questions about singular they in literature. We talk about the function of pronouns, common misunderstanding about singular they, and neutral versus gender-nonconforming use of this fantastic third person pronoun. Whether you would like reading recommendations (Virginia Woolf, Lamya H, Rae Spoon…) or some insight into what singular they can do in creative and academic writing, this episode might have some answers – or questions – for you.  

References

Lena Mattheis’ Queer Forms and Pronouns: Gender Nonconformity in Anglophone Literature (Oxford University Press, 2026)
Laura Paterson (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Pronouns (Routledge, 2023)
Anna Livia
Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues (2023)
Rae Spoon’s Green Glass Ghosts (2021)
Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body (1992)
Anne Garréta’s Sphinx (1986)
Charlie Josephine’s I, Joan (2022)
The Globe
https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/identity-in-i-joan/
Kit Heyam
Laura Paterson and Georgina Turner (eds) Approaches to Discourses of Marriage (Routledge, 2024)
Lal Zimman  

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:
    What is a pronoun?
    How does Lena define gender-nonconformity pronouns?
    Why is it relevant whether a narrator comments on pronoun use or not? Which examples does Lena provide?
    Which literary texts do Laura and Lena mention? Which one would you like to read and why?
    What do Laura and Lena discuss about pronouns in academic writing? Do you have an established practice for this?