Bio
Red Washburn (they/he) is Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the City University of New York. They teach Women’s and Gender Studies and Liberal Studies at the Graduate Center. They are a mentor for the CUNY BA Program in Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. From Fall 2020-Spring 2023, they were 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. He was 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. He teaches first-year composition, feminist and trans literature, queer literature, Irish and postcolonial literature, creative nonfiction, introduction to women’s and gender studies, introduction to LGBTQ studies, feminist and trans theory, queer theory, postcolonial theory, prison studies, feminist and trans history, civil rights and postcolonial 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. He 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.
Routledge published their academic manuscript Irish Women’s Prison Writing: Mother Ireland’s Rebels, 1960s-2010s. The paperback edition of this book is now available. They have been giving many book talks in the United States in Ireland. Their book launch was hosted by the Center of Global Women’s Studies at the University of Galway, Ireland 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, they gave a talk and were in conversation with Theresa O’Keefe, Chiara Bonfiglioli, and Roseleen Walsh for Women’s Studies, Criminology, and Sociology at University College Cork, Ireland. In addition, they gave a talk and were in conversation with Ailbhe Smyth, Roseleen Walsh, and Dána-Ain Davis for the Center for the Study of Women and Society and MA Program in Women’s and Gender Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, which was 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. To watch, please visit here. He also gave a talk with Kelly Gallagher and Roseleen Walsh at the Gluckman Ireland House at New York University.
Red just finished up a batch of international talks this winter, including Queen’s University Belfast, a conversation with Gillian McNaull, Alessandro Corda, and Roseleen Walsh, sponsored by the Centre of Criminology and Criminal Justice in the Law School; at Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland, moderated by Peter Gray, sponsored by the Institute of Irish Studies; at Ghent University, Belgium, sponsored by the Department of Languages and Cultures and the Centre for Research on Culture and Gender; and at the Linen Hall Library in Ireland, a conversation with Susie Deedigan, Eilish Rooney, and Roseleen Walsh.
In addition, Red discussed their book with Jared Ware of Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. He also gave talk at Bard Microcollege at the Brooklyn Public Library. They gave a talk at Central Washington University, with a reading by Roseleen Walsh.
Red was a Visiting Research Fellow in the Humanities Institute at University College Dublin in the summer of 2024.
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.
Their articles appear in Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Journal of Lesbian Studies. Their essays appear in Theory and Praxis: Women’s and Gender Studies at Community Colleges, Introduction to Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches, and Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community.
They also co-edited many issues of Sinister Wisdom, including Trans/Feminisms, published in April 2023. They recently edited the WSQ issue Nonbinary in November 2023, for which they did a launch.
Finishing Line Press published their poetry collections Crestview Tree Woman and Birch Philosopher X.