Bio
Red Washburn (they/he) is Professor of English and Director of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Kingsborough Community College as well as Affiliate Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at the Graduate Center (CUNY). They are a mentor for the CUNY BA Program in Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. From Fall 2020-2023, they are Co-Editor of WSQ, published by the Feminist Press, partnered with the Center for the Humanities and Center for the Study of Women and Society at the Graduate Center. They were a Research Fellow at the Committee for Globalization and Social Change as well as the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics at the Graduate Center fall/spring 2018-2020. They were a Visiting Professor at Vassar College summers 2018-2019. They teach first-year composition, women’s and trans literature, queer literature, creative nonfiction, introduction to women’s and gender studies, feminist and trans theory, queer theory, postcolonial theory, prison studies, women’s and trans history, civil rights and post-colonial history, and social movements in the United States and Ireland, post- World War II, among other courses.
They received a M.A. in English from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2005 and a M.A. in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Maryland in 2007. They received a Ph.D. in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland in 2010.
Their articles appear in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Journal of Lesbian Studies. In 2019, they completed a book chapter, “Endangered Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Community Colleges in #MeToo Times,” featured in Theory and Praxis: Women’s and Gender Studies at Community Colleges, edited by Heather Rellihan and Genevieve Carminati. In addition, they recently co-wrote an essay with Kimberly Williams Brown called “Trans-forming Bodies and Bodies of Knowledge: A Case Study of Utopia, Intersectionality, Transdisciplinarity, and Collaborative Pedagogy” for Introduction to Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches, edited by L. Ayu Sarawati, Barbara L. Shaw, and Heather Rellihan in 2020. In April 2022, they also published “COVID-19: Trans Lives and Trans Studies” in Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community, edited by Laura Erickson-Schroth and Kevin Johnson.
Finishing Line Press published their poetry collections Crestview Tree Woman and Birch Philosopher X. Many of their poems appear in Sinister Wisdom.
Routledge published their academic manuscript Irish Women’s Prison Writing: Mother Ireland’s Rebels, 1960s-2010s. They are giving many talks in the fall and spring in the United States in Ireland. Their book launch was hosted by the Center of Global Women’s Studies at the University of Galway on Human Rights Day. Red Washburn was in conversation with Eugene O’Brien, Margaretta D’Arcy, and Nata Duvvury. To watch, please visit here. On International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023 (US 1-3PM, Ireland 6-8PM on Zoom), they will be giving a talk with Theresa O’Keefe, Chiara Bonfiglioli, and Roseleen Walsh, hosted by Women’s Studies, Criminology, and Sociology at University College Cork. Please register here. In addition, they will be giving a talk with Ailbhe Smyth, Roseleen Walsh, and Dána-Ain Davis, hosted by the Center for the Study of Women and Society and MA Program in Women’s and Gender Studies and co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, the MA Program in Liberal Studies, the PhD Program in English, the Mina Rees Library, the Feminist Press, and WSQ at the CUNY Graduate Center on April 18, 2023 (US 2-3:30PM, Ireland 7-8:30PM on Zoom). Please register here. They also will be giving a talk with Kelly Gallagher and Roseleen Walsh at the Gluckman Ireland House at New York University on September 21, 2023 at 7-8:30pm (in person, with more details forthcoming).
They co-edited many issues of Sinister Wisdom, including most recently Trans/Feminisms, forthcoming, Spring 2023. They are currently working on co-editing the WSQ issue Nonbinary, forthcoming, Fall 2023.
Their next book focuses on nonbinary literatures, visual arts, and performance, Nonbinary: Tr@ns-Forming Gender and Genre in Nonbin@ry Literature, Performance, and Visual Art. They received a Mellon/ American Council of Learned Societies Faculty Fellowship for this book project.
They are on sabbatical Fall 2022-Spring 2023.